I just knew we'd make it.  ParTEEE!!  (Missed my chance for that to be reply 1999 - heh.)

Ah, the old "I'll hop in when you hop out" [of the bath] trick.  Or was that; "Well we can both get in here [the shower] with a pinch" ???

Well I did my bit!  Don't drink water cos fish do rude things in it.

Seriously, that 145 litrea a day includes such things as car washing, watering plants, showering, etc, etc.  I did/do my bit by not having a car to wash or plants to water... I also turn off the tap after wetting my toothbrush/paste... turn it back on later to rinse.  Same with shaving, which I don't do every day if I don't need to... tap on to wet my face and off again until I need to rinse off.  I never use the washing machine unless I have a full load, saves water and power.

And it's not just about conserving resources... I'm a tight arse and don't like giving money to water and power companies.

I just thought the Mammoth story was interesting... I'll put it into an equation:

Climate >> Humans > Mammoth

Now input this knowledge into our nice black box function that describes the Mammoth and then we get the inevitable outcome:

MammothBB(Climate, Humans, Ice Age) = Mammoths go extinct.

It's just a bit sad that it's only a black box function, we don't know what happens exactly, we only know the outcome.

Well anyway... the interesting part is that the early humans may not be to the ones to blame for the extinction of the Mammoths. It makes sense, because at the time there were very few humans on the planet. My guess is, just a few million on the entire planet. And the few of those that roamed to northern plains only had a few primitive spears, made of wood and stone.

And the other interesting part is, that vegetation can change permanently after a dramatic climate event. There's a tipping point, where some species just disappear, because other species take over. Of course it's not just the plants that the Mammoths ate. It's also happened to the pine forests of Europe; there were several species of pine trees, but after the Ice Age, only 1 species was left.

I wonder if we humans can do even more damage than that... it's seems almost impossible.

I think that in 200 years from now, humans will have turned the Earth into a beautiful garden.

(like much of Europe is nowadays).

It'll probably be a tropical garden / paradise with white sandy beaches everywhere.

The current coastal cities will act as the seeds of giant reefs/habitats for fish, creating a rich coastal flora and fauna.

Mankind can turn grasslands into desert, but it can also turn deserts into grasslands.

Well anyway, I wanted to say something positive for a change... it doesn't have to be true, it's as good a guess as any.

Do you think Europe is a terrible place? It's pretty beautiful, even if most of it is completely unnatural...

If Europe were natural, you'd only have forest, more forests and even more lots of forests everywhere. I like forests but too much of a thing can become a pretty boring landscape don't you think.

Um, no!  My next project is saving for some of that cryogenic science.... so I can be defrosted in 200 years and say: "See, I told you so."

What the hell, we're on such a roll:

From...

Step into my office, Paul...  Got a little snake oil enema that'll fix ya right up.

Among other things, cures migraine, dystopia, the purge, heartburn, the grippe, the vapors, colic, the heartbreak of psoriasis and smart-assedness.

No problem starkers.  Simply send a cashier's check for $249.95 (US) to:

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1127 West Easy Street, Top Floor
George Town, Grand Cayman Islands

We'll get 2 pints of oil and one jar of chants shipped FedEx Air at no extra charge.

Oh, and those Indian witch doctor chants have to be baritone... the tenors just don't do it for me.

I think it's the deep resonating sound, myself... and when it's combined with the snake oil enema, well I'm right to go.

I think what's interesting about the article is that incorporating just a couple of trade winds, can actually reproduce the observed mitigating (or cooling) effect.

It looks to me like such models are already quite capable of modeling our climate.

There's no desperation... it's just a model and that has no emotions. The article says that when they input the change in trade winds, the model gave a reduced warming like we're seeing nowadays.

Imho that's pretty impressive: the only thing they have to do in their entire modeling, is adjust some wind.

The thing that's left is to understand why the trade winds are like that.

How hard can that be... I think the current state of the models is quite impressive.

Just 10 years ago, to model or predict such things were completely impossible.

And so say all of us... well those with a mind of their own... those of us who don't blindly believe just because a scientist said so.

Ah, but there is... desperation.  The model may have no emotions, but the scientists who created it do... as do those with vested interests, and the desperation is to convince the entire world they've got it right... because there are huge amounts of money to be made once done.  So while these studies and models have some interest value, they are just that, interesting and certainly not gospel.