On July 26, 2018 at 16:56 SNaslund@medline.com (Naslund, Steve) wrote:
Since we have been able to cope with train derailments, backhoes, forest fires, traffic accidents, etc, I am pretty confident that the networks will keep up with the lightning fast 1/8" per year rise in sea level.
Anthropologists say (there was a pretty good article on this in The Atlantic a year or two ago) that's what we (humanity) have done historically, adapted, eventually learned to eat acorns or rats or whatever*. And very little if anything to combat the basic problem even if we understood it well enough. We'll adapt and adapt because the problems tend to evolve slowly. Unfortunately I tend to think that's the likely outcome here simply because whatever we (more developed countries) do several billion people out there will undo faster because let's face it they want to eat regularly, have reliable electricity, etc. etc. etc. And a lot of what could be done works against their getting all that, at least if it's limited to their means. Perhaps not in theory. But call me when the G8 or G20 proposes to plunk down the many trillions it would likely cost to provide the rest of them with fertilizer and farming techniques and energy generation plants and so on which aren't contributing to the problem. Didn't India recently state that they won't even talk about slowing down the rate of increase (2nd derivative) of coal usage for at least ten years? Not picking on India, they have their reasons, but just trying to be realistic and move past these late-night dorm room bull sessions about how the world ought to work. * One significant exception was crop and field rotation which worked very well where it was possible. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*