But before Tourism Tasmania sends a hit man out after me, let me tell you why.
It’s Chile’s fault. Well, the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano, anyway. It started up again the other day and ash has been blown eastwards two-thirds of the way around the bloody globe, to the point where it has all but grounded all air services in and out of Tasmania. Services to and from New Zealand are also affected.
My brother, whose work regularly takes him to Hobart Airport and knows many of the ground staff, tells me people are going stark-staring mad out there. Travellers frantically calling their bosses interstate and overseas, telling them they won’t be back at work until further notice. As a remote island, if you can’t fly out, you’re pretty well stuck here. The one major passenger ship, The Spirit Of Tasmania (my own preferred method of travel to and from Melbourne), has cleared its cinema to offer 110 extra seats per nightly crossing, but they were snapped up within minutes.
By all means, visit Tasmania some day! One day on the island and you’ll see why I moved here, and will never leave. Endless natural beauty, the world’s freshest air, food and wine to die for, and a totally relaxed lifestyle. Just not at the moment…
It makes you think, though. How powerless we are at the hands of nature, and the hubris that places us at the centre of the universe, as if we can change anything beyond our own little patch of dirt. In 1991, after Mt Pinatubo erupted, the earth is said to have cooled half a degree. At an IPCC estimate of 2° Celsius warming this century, (say) half of that anthropogenic, that makes it equivalent to undoing fifty years of man’s best efforts at spewing out greenhouse gases!
It makes you think.
Update 21 June 1145 AEST:
Well, the whole east coast is stuffed now. According to this article, all flights in and out of Sydney and Newcastle are cancelled indefinitely from 3pm, Canberra from noon, Melbourne and Mildura from 4pm. Virgin Australia say Brisbane is likely to be affected as well. If you have any relatives or friends flying to or from eastern Australia any time soon, let them know.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
Well I think your aviation authority’s are over reacting unless you fly directly through the plume it is probably so diluted it would make no difference. They are seeing whether you lot are as much sheep as Europe was when it comes to grounding air traffic.
In other news….
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ee00cd993c4221a5ac150a9aab17ca0b.601&show_article=1
It makes you think about how robust the modern aspects of civilisation is and whether the dependency we develop on new technology without the backup of the old is wise.
Air travel is now not a luxury, but a requirement for the functioning of many places difficult to reach by other means. The fact it is NOT a garanteed service, and is subject to disruption by natural events can get overlooked….
The large temperature excursion after the eruption of Mt Pinatubo a half degree drop for almost three years, is a clear indication of the climate sensitivity. There are measurements of the amount of albedo change the added sulphur and water vapour in the stratosphere caused and therefore the change in Watts/m2. Comparison with the amount of change in W/m2 measured from the CO2 increase is just one of the lines of evidence for how much temperature cvhaznge we can expect from the CO2.
The big difference is that the Pinatubo additions to the atmosphere were rained out over ~3 years. The additional CO2 will take several centuries to millenia to reduce to the past level so its influence continues for far longer than a volcanic event.
Luckly the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano is not on the same scale as Pinatubo (yet!) and the amount of albedo changing emissions into the stratosphere has been minimal so it is unlikley to have much influence on global climate.
On the other hand, that much extra sulphur in the circumpolar vortex is not going to do the ozone hole any good.
Which has knock-on effects on the westerly jet stream and the position of the hadley cells that provide the humidity that falls as rain and snow in Australia so expect some more ‘unusual’ weather….
@- Kitler
You are right that a total engine failure and significant danger is probably only a risk if the aircraft flies through a certain density of the dust plume.
But any silica dust in a jet engine tends to be a problem. It shortens the lifetime of components and requires more frequent servicing and replacement of engine parts. And from the airline POV, that is an avoidable expense….
Izen the fact that multiple eruptions happen all the time you are proposing the complete stoppage of airline flights which no doubt the rich and the powerful elites want so only they can travel. This latest measure is not about safety but about control.
I had the statism and control argument with a Quantas pilot last year, should have seen the ad hominae fly from him. His idea was that all the money would come in later, poor soul mustn’t have heard of money having a time value, or opportunities having a sell by date. I dread to think what his fellow crew members make of being stuck beside him on a ten hour flight.
Kitler,
Great news on gunwalker. I’m still in the banana rep, so haram 2 lurk at the dutch fella’s site for the news.
And it still hasn’t improved here today. Oh well, I guess all those stranded tourists will keep spending their money here.
Over at WUWT there’s a discussion of the latest findings of astrophysicists; they believe the next solar maximum will be the last for several decades.
re Gunwalker
Irons in the fire blog has linked to some interesting stuff over the past couple of days.
It looks like Darrel Issa has torpedoed the excuse that higher ups didn’t know – by releasing ATF e-mails.
Firehand also links to some guys reviewing media coverage, especially CNN continuing to push the old “90% of guns captured in Mexico” myth; current reckoning is a figure of about 9%.
I’ve seen and repeated the idea that the O’Bumble regime is the best recruiter to a libertarian outlook that we’ve had in a long time. Perhaps I should modify that to O’Bumble, in serving W’s third term for him, is the best eye opener to the crimes committed by statists, and recruiter to an out and out anarcho-capitalist viewpoint that we’ve had since the Stewart dynasty.
Looks like the BBC is covering it, though they’re still pushing the lines that
a) this was a sting to trap big fish (how?)
b) they’re still vaguely pushing the meme that somehow US citizens having guns fuels a drug prohibition war in Mexico
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13785080
I should never “cruise” YouTube. I seem to remember Ozboy once mentioning that his father was a cartographer. I never know “map of Tasmania” was one of them double entendre thingies…
Oh dear… the secret’s out – Oz 😳
Ozboy,
This is hilarious. I’m not sure there’s even a cultural equivalent to it in the States. We do, however, have a member of Congress who got busted for tweeting his map of Florida.
Dr Dave…..
Kitler,
Leave it to you to stir up bad memories. I once had a boss who was about a year or so younger than me. He was a big fan of the Cramps, the Cure, the Buzzcocks, the B-52s, etc. Basically, if it was shit music he liked it.. This guy’s taste resided in his rectum. To this day I get a little nauseous whenever I hear the Sex Pistols.
Oddly, some years later I had a boss who was about 15 years my senior and made a big deal out of the fact he was Jewish. Man was he a prick! I hated him (and I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual). Turns out we were both fans of the same types of music. He loved bluegrass, jazz and blues. I turned him on to classic Honky Tonk and he turned me on to Klazmer music. We ended up being good friends.
G’day Dave. There’s a troll at DT pontificating on medicine now. perhaps you might care to knock some sense into him.
I’m worn out, been cutting wood all day. I’m gonna soak in a hot bath, with some home brew. Cheers – Oz
Ozboy,
I’m assuming you’re referring to “Daen De Leon” (great name, by the way). He is technically correct. The human body doesn’t tolerate fluctuations in blood chemistry pH very well. We do, however, have a host of mechanisms to deal with it. We have lungs to blow off CO2, kidneys to excrete organic acids and a robust internal buffer system. As organisms we tolerate EXTERNAL environmental stressors quite handily. We deal with CO2 concentrations in the thousands of ppm. Our bodies neutralize organic and environmental acids on a wholesale basis. It is stupid to equate internal body chemistry with that of the ocean.
Every animal has developed mechanisms for dealing with the environment around them, we’re no different. Every year the US Navy exposes hundreds (if not thousands) of men to very high ambient CO2 concentrations in nuclear submarines for up to six months at a time. The human body simply compensates for this. Blood chemistry and environment are very separate issues.
I am loathe to engage in troll battle on the JD/DT blog. It’s like whipping the puppy for peeing on the rug yesterday.
Ahhh, that feels better…
Fair enough Dave. It’s just that there’s something about the smugness of trolls I find offensive. Why don’t they put their money where their mouths are? Move to the country, stop polluting, grow their own food and dispose of their own waste?
We both know the answer – Oz
Dr Dave…..well my musical tastes are a lot wider than yours and I grew up with punk of which a lot of was crap but still a lot of bands exited that better such as the Clash and the Stranglers. I dare not ask you what you think of Goths, New Age, New Romantics and Futurists and the Skar revival?
I shall leave you with Joy Division the lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide the music explains a lot he was known for his happy go lucky nature….
Kitler,
I think you would be surprised at the eclectic nature of my taste in music. There are just a few genres of music I can’t stand. These include rap, hip-hop, most grunge, most (but not all) punk, heavy metal and opera. I don’t care for jazz fusion or what they call “urban”. But I was into New Age before they called it “new age. I like ska, reggae, blues, jazz and most rock. I like most country except the Nashville crap you hear on the radio. I’ve got about a thousand CDs and they cover a pretty wide swath of musical tastes. I like artists whose music can’t be easily defined by a specific genre. I tolerate a lot stuff until it starts to sound like cat torture.
What would you call this little duet by Peter Wolf and Mick Jagger?
Er… Country? Rhythm & Blues? Don’t know but I like it.
meltemian,
I don’t know what to call it, either…but I like it, too. I’m very glad to hear from you. What the heck is going on in Greece? Sure…I can read the news, but I much prefer hearing it first hand from you. I hear things are turning nasty in Athens.
I’ll second that. What’s your take on it all, Mel? – Oz
DrDave I can not tolerate any form of jazz and I sincerely believe it’s practitioners should be banned from musical instruments forever. The only way I can describe it is finger nails down the blackboard of my spine combined with sensory deprivation.. I am acutely audio sensitive especially to certain frequency’s of sound and can hear things most humans can not. I agree Grunge mostly sucked I love heavy metal music but you may be thinking more on the lines of thrash metal or death metal.
I’ve got a pretty busy day out the back today. I’ll pop my head in when I get a chance.
Kitler,
Now that you mention it, I don’t listen to jazz all that frequently because the little woman can’t stand it. I prefer the old, smokey bar room, Miles Davis jazz of the 50s. I will agree that modern jazz gets out of hand rather quickly and starts to sound more like a cacophony than music…but the same can be said for head banger metal. Whenever I listen to live jazz I’m always blown away by the drummers, when I listen to good “country” I’m always impressed by the pickers. I would say that most of what I listen to is folk or country-flavored. I love the “Austin sound”, but I love good, solid rock n’ roll, too. Of course I played in a bluegrass band, but I only like it in measured doses (oddly a lot of jazz fans are also bluegrass fans…go figure! I can’t play a lick of jazz).
I used to have super-acute high frequency hearing. When I was a kid I could hear the high pitch oscillation of TV set from 20 yards away. Most of us, by the time we reach our mid-20s, can no longer hear super high frequencies. There is a company that makes a product called the Mosquito (or something like that) that emits an annoying super high frequency noise that adults can’t hear but teenagers can. They sell it to store owners to keep kids from congregating outside their businesses and driving away the customers with the cash. When I first read about it I thought it was bullshit. Turns out it’s not. You can to the web, search for it and try it yourself. Almost no adults over about 30 can hear it, but kids do. In fact, kids, being inventive, have downloaded these ultra-high frequencies as ring tones for their cell phones. Their teachers can’t hear that they’re receiving a call in class. Check it out. Odds are you no longer possess the acuity you thought you once had.
I’ve heard that too. We’re supposed to lose about 3 or 4 Hertz per day off the top of our hearing from the age of 21, or something like that.
Makes no difference to me. My ears were permanently shot on 23rd February 1981. The first AC/DC concert in Australia after Bon Scott died. There was reputedly a 75,000 watt double 4-way front-of-house and I was about 10 feet from the right-hand stack. North Sydney police station (10 miles away) were getting complaints from locals about the noise. I’ve suffered chronic ear infections and blockages ever since.
But it was worth it 😉
Here it is (bootleg, crappy audio – I think I can momentarily spot myself in the crowd):
Ozboy,
The ONLY thing I like about AC/DC is that the DJ played Highway to Hell at my wedding reception and pissed off my future ex-wife. I’ve been to few concerts that were too damn loud…so loud you hear a buzzing inside your head rather than the music. The one that was a sore disappointment for me was the Marshall Tucker Band in about 1976. The band was fabulous but the idiot running the sound had it cranked WAY beyond the size of venue. Louder ain’t better. I think age, firearms and fireworks have attenuated my auditory acuity. Kids that rig up 500 watt subwoofers in their Honda Civics don’t realize the damage they’re doing to their hearing. Artillery barrages are less damaging!
I wear shooting muffs just running my chipper/shredder. I’m compulsive about sunglasses. But once in a while I like to cut loose with the surround sound system in my living room. I have the big, floor standing JBL front speakers that weigh about 60 lbs each. I have two side and two rear JBLs mounted to the wall, a JBL center channel speaker and a floor firing 12″, 200 watt JBL powered subwoofer. Once in a while I love to dust off my copy of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours in 5.1 surround DVD audio. You know…when you can feel the subwoffer in your gut. This album was never actually a favorite of mine but it was expertly remastered to 5.1 and it sounds GREAT cranked. I’ve annoyed an annoying neighbor a quarter mile away! You what to say if they can’t take a joke…
Well, I was only 17 at the time and had just started my first year of university… you see life a little differently when you’ve grown up.
These days I only get to crank up the volume once a year (when Mrs Oz and kids are visiting her parents). I don’t mind this at high volume:
Well DrDave and Ozboy I don’t doubt I have lost some acuity but since I did not damage my hearing with loud music or concerts I can still tell which electrical equipment is going on the fritz.
Ozboy,
I attended a local college for the first couple years of the “odyssey”. On my 19th birthday I was visiting a friend who attended Kalamazoo College (private and snooty). One might say I was “fungally impaired” on this particular evening. They were playing Genesis at high volume through a couple of Bose 501s and let me tell you…the music sort of “came alive” (if you get my drift). Then my friend’s utterly pretentious older brother put on some ultra-weird electronica and cranked it. We sat there hopelessly loaded and endured it. He then looked at me and said…”OK, try to top THAT!” So I did. I went in and put on New Riders of the Purple Sage “Panama Red” and left the volume cranked. Everybody in the room dug it and started laughing except my friend’s pretentious older brother who had been shown up. He stormed off and yanked the needle off the vinyl and told me, “this is Kalamazoo College…you can’t play that stuff here!”. I swear…this dickhead was livid! For old times sake, here it is…
Could you type a bit louder please?
HOW’S THIS – OZ 😮
My hearing is terrible, I should probably have hearing aids. Low frequency is ok, I can hear distant sonic booms from the military over the Irish sea, and the North Sea if I’m on airstrip one (all of the cock pheasants for miles around get upset and call straight afterwards – so it isn’t just my imagination), but I cannot hear speech if there is any background noise, and making out normal conversation is difficult. If I’m lying on my left ear, I can’t make out what my wife is saying with my right, which annoys her to hell. Amen, brother – that’s me exactly
It was mostly guns, rock drill, and noisy diesel engines, with a bit of schoolboy experimental chemistry thrown in for good luck 😉
It is one many things to spoil hollywood films for me, when someone can hear a whisper, or a something being dropped, just after firing a pistol indoors and without ear protection – I was once slow to put my plugs in at the open air range and someone fired a pistol about 12 feet away, I was behind them – my ears buzzed for about 10 days. Even with plugs in, the partitions between the firing points used to almost visibly pulse with the noise when someone fired in the next stall.
Dr Dave,
Thanks for the “Map of Tasmania”,
I’m going to have to share that (with a NSFW warning!).
Ian,
What even funnier than the video I left is the link Ozboy posted. It’s hilarious!
That’s much better Oz, thanks.
It even helps with the middle aged eyesight, I’m down to a range of about 12 inches which I can focus on without some sort of glasses.
It’s a bit of a bugger
Well I at least have my other super power intact which is an incredibly prehensile long tongue and with effort I can wiggle my increasingly furry ears as well, very boring and not exactly spiderman level but who is.
I’ve been onsite (surface) at a Cu-Pb-Zn mine in the outback when they’ve done some serious underground blasting. That’s the loudest sound of my own experience. Damn near threw me into the air. Anyone else?
Ozboy although personally no but this might have…
I have experienced the exact opposite of very loud noise total silence the complete absence of any sound whatsoever, nothing zippo, nada, zilch, no wind, no animals, no birds, no machinery, nothing and it is the weirdest spookiest thing you can ever experience.
Ian,
I learned an important lesson about gun safety many years ago. My wife left one Saturday on an all-day shopping excursion. This didn’t frighten me in the slightest because she was a notorious tight wad. She could shop all freakin’ day and only spend $80. It was a challenge for her that I’ll never understand. So there I am. It’s summer. I’m sitting in my underwear in my home office drinking a cup of coffee. I have a new 9mm pistol I just acquired on my desk. Apparently I forgot I had loaded the damn thing the night before. A cat was sitting on my lap. I casually pointed the 9mm off into the distance and pulled the trigger. Don’t know where the cat went. But I learned a lot of lessons very quickly. Guns are a LOT louder when fired indoors. “Smokeless powder” is a relative term. Never have a cat on your lap while only wearing underwear and firing a gun indoors.
It was a FMJ bullet that went through one partition, carved about a 12″ gouge on the dining room wall, penetrated another partition and dented the light fixture in the kitchen. Oddly, I found the bullet in my living room. I panicked and rushed off to the hardware store. I repaired and repainted everything before the cloven hoofed female returned and she was never the wiser. My ears were ringing for at least two days. Guns are loud. Big caliber guns are almost oppressively loud. Oddly a .41 magnum has a more intense report than a .44 magnum. A .357 magnum isn’t as loud as a .45 ACP. But a .460 S&W magnum will deafen you without hearing protection.
I always wear hearing protection when using firearms (wherever possible); I want to preserve what hearing I’ve still got.
And congratulations Dave – you’ve just posted LibertyGibbert’s 15,000th comment! As always, many thanks to you all for making LG what it is.
20,000th comment gets a jar of Vegemite – Oz
I’ve been underground with blasting a few times, one time it was in a cave dig and I was about 20 yards round the corner from a cigar sized piece of explosive in a little drill hole, that was loud, other times I felt it as a low freq boom in my chest than heard it. I’ve videoed quarry blasts a few times, with the camera held above the bund that I’m lying behind, they were small by mining standards, with about 20 tonnes of emulsion, but still release for more juoles/sec than a saturn V rocket!
This was posted at Irons in the fire a while back, I hope I never see one like this!
http://elmtreeforge.blogspot.com/2011/05/when-you-can-watch-shockwave-approach.html
Dr Dave,
OMG!
Extra reason to despise cats
I’ve some reprint old reports from tests on “silencers” at Frankford Arsenal – even the best still gave reports of over 100 decibels (painful) with rounds like .32 acp.
I think it depends largely on pressure at the muzzle. I hate to think what an M4 carbine sounds like indoors.
Oz,
You’ll have to find a different prize if it’s one of our pals in the US.
They’ll get a SWAT raid and the dogs shot for vegemite
come to that, they’ll get to here an M4 fired indoors – very unpleasant.
this is big
shame about the waste – all on our tax $/£/€
ok, I’d better do some work
byeeee
Ian,
I don’t dislike cats…I’ll simply never have another one in my home. I’m pretty much thoroughly a dog person now, having gone through 4 Golden Retrievers and now on numbers 5 and 6. “Silencers” are a bunch of Hollywood bullshit. They ONLY work on semiautomatic weapons and they don’t really “silence” all that much. You can silence a .22 pistol down to air rifle range, but a 9mm is still gonna sound like a firecracker. Very high tech suppressors can quiet a 9mm down to “background noise” levels with sub-sonic loads, but these are not all that effective. Most silenced weapons still go BANG…just not as loudly. And silencers don’t work on revolvers and not too well on high powered rifles.
You realise you’ve just spoiled Mission Impossible and most of the Bond films for me – Oz 👿
I think the holywood portrayal has a big chunk of “forbidden fruit” value in it. With a $200 Fed tax and lots of paperwork before you get to pay for a moderator, there aren’t many people with experience of them, and plenty who make money out of “plans” for a coke bottle stuffed with cardboard disks.
I heard a rumor that the ATF were going after a muzzle brake that gave a couple of dB attenuation, say 143 dB to 141 dB – still makes your ears whistle and the neighbours complain, but hell, there’s all of $200 tax owing, and the chance of a kitten to stomp on during the raid…
On Airstrip One, they’re licensed as “firearms in their own right” I keep an old Parker Hale one on my .22 martini.
I’ve used one on a .22 ruger semi auto pistol (back in the day 😦 ), and it made the pistol comfortable to use without ear protection, still loud, like a loud hand clap, but didn’t make my ears buzz, it didn’t work very well with sub sonics, the ruger semi autos are set up for hi vel loadings.
On a .22 rifle, they’re ok with sub sonics, you still get a loud sonic crack with standard and high vel loadings. sub sonic has less wind drift than std vel (wind drift is proportional to change in velocety down range), so I tend to use them all the time, with or without the sound moderator.
ANY firearm equipped with a suppressor in the US is considered a Class III firearm (same as fully automatic guns). It is VERY difficult to acquire a Class III permit and it is impossible in some (if not most) states. I’ve heard that Class III permits are relatively easy to get in Louisiana, but it still takes 6 months and you have to through BATF to comply with GCA. I was surprised to learn that one can buy suppressors off the shelf in several European countries. Suppressors are considered “bad guy” tools here in the US. In truth they would be great for sport shooting as it would obviate the need for hearing protection. You can quiet down a 9mm or a .45 ACP pretty effectively but they still go BANG when you shoot them. Ever see the movie Gorky Park? It had perhaps the most realistic portrayal of a “real life” silencer. You can find demonstrations on YouTube as well.
Switchblade knives are sold all over Europe (Germany makes some of the best). They’re illegal in the US. Why? The 1957 movie Westside Story gave the public the impression that they were the preferred weapon of street gangs. These extremely utilitarian tools were rendered illegal because of a movie! You can still acquire them easily over the internet. I love ’em when I’m working in the garage or out in the yard. You can hold something in one hand, reach into your pocket, press a button and you have a knife to cut with your free hand. But technically any folding knife that can be opened with one hand is “illegal”…because of a movie over 50 years ago. I’m pretty sure all the secret agent movies of the 60s resulted in the regulations on “silencers”.
Dr Dave, You made me laugh so much I had to explain why to Himself. He has duly noted your advice and will take great care not to startle any of our cats in similar circumstances!!
Only just got round to reading all the posts today.
Re: Greece, people are still protesting in Athens but strangely here in Corfu a sort of lethargy seems to have set in. It could be that the tourist season is well under way and most people are keeping their heads down and earning what they can while they can. No-one takes any notice of the strikes any more, everywhere seemed to be open as usual last Wednesday, even the Air Traffic Controllers kept working. “Must keep the tourists coming in” seems to be the order of the day, worry about the financial crisis in the autumn. Everyone knows it’s coming! The politicians just keep re-arranging the furniture while the country sinks. France and Germany are hell-bent on keeping Greece in the EU whatever it costs although there is no way the debts can be repaid. Lending more money to someone who is already up to the limit on their credit card seems a strange way to help? It’s only going to get worse…….
Hi meltemian!
Yeah…that was one of those “once in a lifetime” experiences. But for Kitsy sitting in my lap, I could honestly say that “no one was hurt” in the incident. But a thoroughly startled cat will gain traction in any way possible so I came away a little bloodied. Fortunately she was a very forgiving feline and didn’t hold it against me.
A lot of the Western media suggests actual rioting in Athens. What I don’t understand is what they’re rioting about. There ain’t no money left. But I do understand about the tourist trade. I live in Santa Fe and if tourism fails so does the town. We’re the second largest art market in the country after NYC and we have tourists pretty much year round. The summer and early Autumn brings in the big money tourists and in the winter we get the skiers. Some of the locals complain about the “damn tourists”, but most realize that they represent this town’s bread and butter.
I guess if France and Germany want to spend their wealth to keep Greece in the EU then it’s all the better for Greece. I just don’t understand why they would. Profligate government spending never ends well.
DrDave if you wish to understand what is happening to Greece try reading the Finance section of the DT while saving the Euro at all costs seems to be the intended goal the real reason is that the French and German banks are way in over their heads on their lending to the Greeks and their Governments just as UK banks are beholden to the Irish for the same reasons.
If the Greeks drop out of the EU bring back the drachma and devalue the French and German banks will all go bankrupt over night and overnight so will the French and German governments and economies.
My money is on our plucky Greek friends destroying the European project.
OK well air services to and from Tasmania are getting back to normal, so I had better release another thread before Tourism Tasmania really does have me assassinated.
Here it is.
Things have gotten a bit muddled in the transmission here. Ozboy is correct that I invoked medicine (I’m a life science software engineer with a patent in the business, so I have the chops to do that) but only insofar as it was to demonstrate that small changes in pH are often non-trivial in biology. While what you say about the remarkable mechanisms for maintaining a pretty constant pH level in higher animals such as ourselves is true, it is equally true that there is no corresponding feedback mechanism for the environment, as we can infer for historic oceanic pH, and as you yourself point out – blood chemistry and environment are different, and it would indeed have been stupid of me to imply otherwise. As an analogy to highlight the differences between the two, however, I maintain that it is still valid. For the record, I am a) not a troll and b) interested in the debate without having a dog in the fight. Equally (and here Ozboy is wrong) I don’t own a car. Living in the country, growing your own food and recycling your waste frankly isn’t much of an option when you don’t have a car and work for a medical device company in the city, as much as I’d like to. That, as much as anything, is the problem with the nature of modern civilization, right?
Hello Daen and welcome to LibertyGibbert. Check your inbox – Oz