Shocking satellite image shows Alaska’s formerly frozen Yukon Delta is completely green

Discussion in 'Science' started by Durandal, Jul 29, 2021.

  1. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    What, do you deny that much of the US was actually tundra and arctic and alpine conditions during the last ice age?
     
  2. Cougarbear

    Cougarbear Banned

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    No, I thought your quote was hysterical and right on...
     
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  3. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Then surely you remember the San Fernando Valley still being mostly farmland, Orange County still covered by orange groves, and Newhall and Irvine mostly being farmland.

    Heck, such footage is not even hard to find. Here is a great film of Devonshire, one of the main East-West roads in the northern San Fernando Valley.



    Compare that to today, and it is like it is from somewhere completely different. By the 1970's, most of the farms were gone and only a few scattered ranches (normally of Hollywood stars) remained. President Reagan even owned a large ranch in the area, one of several he owned in California. This is where his "living ranch" was, where he stayed when he was working. Not the vacation one most are familiar with farther north up the coast.

    [​IMG]


    And this video I actually love, as it is one of my memories of the area.



    I can tell you almost exactly where one of the last shots is at. Victory Blvd, near Canoga Ave. That is Topanga Plaza in the background, and to the left would have been the old "White Front" store. The farm to the right is now a giant shopping plaza, featuring a Best Buy. I still remember driving the 5-405 merger in Irvine when I returned from boot camp in 1983. Still mostly farms. Today, it is all housing. SO surely you must remember the same things I do, and how the city changed from agriculture to megacity.
     
  4. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Sure. When a society moves away from sustenance farming that’s how it goes. I see no ag labor shortage now in Bangladesh though.

    In the US it’s going to get worse. When I couldn’t get citizen day labor the week or so I have to have extra labor (to lay irrigation pipe and brand calves) anymore I transitioned to migrant labor. That worked for a few years until the guys I hired got too old to do manual labor. The younger generation of migrant labor are no more qualified mentally or physically to do the manual labor than citizens of that age. Now I just come up with more efficient ways of getting the work done. It’s easier than fooling with labor that doesn’t want to work or doesn’t have the mental or physical capabilities.

    Most operations that require reliable labor are transitioning to South African labor. It takes a couple years of paperwork and bureaucratic hassle, but those guys are freaking workaholics. The custom silage chopper I hire is about 90% South African now. They put little SA flags on their tractors and trucks. LOL

    The labor shortage is also pushing neighbors to share labor. I run harvest crew with a neighbor and other neighbors are partnering up now as well. That’s a good thing I guess for the community.
     
  5. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    More people require more development and it's a vicious cycle. Allow 60 years to pass and there will be less farming and more concrete development. Even smaller cities in the US, like 15,000 population, are experiencing the same issues. Is it good or bad...well...depends on each person's perspective...
     
  6. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I think most all industries are experiencing similar labor situations as farming. The idea of keeping the same workers for the long term is unlikely so always turnover. How has the work ethic changed? Sure there are a few great employees but most are mediocre at best. This does not bode well for the consumer and is a huge pain in the ass for the business. Technology is allowing changes in the workplace but human labor is still needed. Ask any employer today what their biggest problem is and most will say labor. And I don't think it makes much difference how much workers are paid...higher pay is just a temporary motivator. Times are changing...
     
  7. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    I agree. I once thought wages would motivate employees. It always has motivated me. It’s how I grew up. If you don’t work you don’t eat. The harder you work the better you eat. Now all anyone wants is a bag of chips to eat while they play video games. LOL

    Yes it is affecting all businesses that I deal with.
     
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  8. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I hope your comment on wage just applies to motivation of those on the job.

    Beyond that, my experience in Seattle is that in various sectors those shut out of low wage jobs due to COVID related business closures are slow in going back when those businesses reopen - they are looking for other employment where there is more future.

    This is happening in education, restaurant work, and other service industry employment.

    I assume food service industries will figure it out or stay closed. BFD.

    But, the education issue is substantially more serious, as our economy and that of our competitors is all moving toward sectors that require more than high school.
     
  9. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    My comment on wages was increasing pay won't guarantee an equal or greater increase in worker performance over the long run. It can attract workers, temporarily motivate workers, but it won't turn a slacker into a high performer. Ref. education, I agree, but even if college studies are free, most people who are going to attend college would try to do so no matter the free ride. And I question if those who are there for the free ride will ever learn anything and/or obtain some credentials? It is seldom, no matter the level of workers I interact with daily, across all industries, that a worker is exemplary...sad to say it is quite the opposite...my comment was higher pay won't solve this problem...
     
  10. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Yes, and I agree with wages not being a great motivator for causing employees to work harder.

    Let's not get into education too much here. I think we could reach agreement after a little discussion. My comment on where our economy was going was only meant as a hand wave at the importance of having a good education system.

    But, the difficulty in hiring some job categories in Seattle is that those who have worked or could work those jobs are holding off in search of better opportunities.

    And, I think education is one of those categories. We tend to overlook that those qualified to teach are also strong prospects in a wide range of other employment.

    Education systems want teachers with advanced degrees. But, there is no profession that offers so little to candidates with advanced degrees. If you can achieve an advanced degree, you really have to want to be a teacher to ignore all the other possibilities that offer higher pay and more opportunity.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2021
  11. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Well...all companies in all industries are competing for the same pot of workers. With a supposed shortage of workers this just makes it easier for workers to cross over to other careers and so-called greener pastures. Employers are desperate for warm bodies to fill long vacant job positions so this is ideal for workers to consider changes. Education must get with the program and figure out how to compete...
     
  12. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Corporations tell us how to hire strong candidates - you make sure that compensation is competitive and you make sure the job is configured to attract strong candidates.

    In the case of education, WE (since we're the ones who create our government systems) have decided that education professionals should get paid what WE think they should be paid, regardless of those competing for their capability. And, we promise salary bumps only for sticking around - unless voters decide not to give them raises at all.

    And, we've decided that education professionals, those with the advanced degrees in specific fields as well as in how education is best accomplished, should stay in their room, teaching the same subject to the same age group using the same curriculum (unless changed from above) for their ENTIRE CAREER!!!

    It's really rather shocking.
     
  13. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Larger companies with 100's or 1000's of employees must do a good job at hiring and sustaining employees or all of their profits will be consumed by the H/R department screwing with high turnover.

    I'm surprised education unions are not more powerful and in control of their destiny?

    Maybe part of the education problem is the unions in which individual educators cannot demand competitive wages and therefore just part of the political game?

    Most people who study education to start a career know all the things you mention above. It doesn't make them right but at least they know what they're getting into...
     
  14. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Yes, education unions have VERY little power of any kind.

    In the states I know, their compensation demands get isolated by the state by requiring them to be made to an education board which is allocated money by the state. So, by the time the union makes a compensation demand, the education board simply doesn't have any money to give even if they wanted to.

    Plus, education unions don't have much input into what gets taught, when it gets taught, what methods are used, or really anything else that relates to k-12 education.
     
  15. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I can't fathom why anyone today would want to be an educator? Just the politics of things in which only certain histories can be taught or complete denial of science, etc. would drive me crazy. I doubt many of them can or will teach climate change? Education is being broken down into red versus blue and the kids are the losers when politics rules. Like I always say; humans have reached their full potential so it's a crap shoot going forward where we prove every day we're incapable of solving our issues...
     
  16. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    OK, sorry in advance for the story time ...

    I have a daughter who teaches high school, accredited in math through calculus and in special education. And, I have several friends who teach, including science.

    My experience is that these people are really totally dedicated to the kids they teach. That is why they are there.

    I went to a college basketball game with a friend who teaches middle school science. The college was in a city about 80 miles from where he teaches. As we walked up the steps to the building, there must have been more than a dozen kids who came up to greet him. They all had things to say related to how my friend had inspired them

    The reward isn't all about the Benjamins. But, the families of teachers live on the salary they get. That can't just be ignored. And, kids who are choosing their careers certainly know that.
     
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  17. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    I know there are many success stories in education but I also know politics and red versus blue is now ruling many of the education curriculums. I think red teachers will need to teach in red states and blue teachers in blue states...and again the students will be the losers. My wife was a teacher in her earlier years but she says she would never be a teacher today...but she is a mentor to some of the high school kids...
     
  18. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    The earth will go through countless warmings and coolings and extinction events before that happens. Our planet has been around for billions of years. At times it has been tropical from top to bottom and, at other times, it has been covered in ice. Those things will probably occur over and over. To view a few years of warming is simply not a crisis. Who knows, in the future there could be huge cities in Yukon and Siberia. It won't be soon, though.
     
  19. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    No. That is NOT a description of the problem.

    The issue we face is that Earth's average temperature is changing fast enough to cause serious problems for billions of humans.

    What happens in the stupendously distant future (or has happened before life even existed on Earth, as you reference) is NOT the issue today. It's clear that worse conditions for life WILL come to Earth. For example, there will be a time when the Sun boils off the oceans into space, making life as currently designed totally impossible.

    So, humans will face worse conditions at some time in the stupendously distant future, but that is a VERY different issue.

    That is NOT an excuse for ignoring near term problems.
     
  20. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    It certainly isn't a reason to call it a crisis. Fearmongering is a good for raising funds but it isn't a good way to actually deal with a problem. NASA says the Earth has warmed about 2 degrees F since 1880. Could that be a normal and common temperature change for nature to provide? Could it turn around a decade or two? It could be but you wouldn't be able to raise funds saying that. Take government out of the whole thing and I may play along. In the meantime I'm not moving to Yukon.
     
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  21. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Nobody is getting rich off of this. Your "raising funds" thing is just plain lame.

    No, as you pointed out Earth's average temperature has varied over time. Scientists have used a number of ways to determine what the temperature has been over many thousands of years.

    Today, we can not avoid climate change by people moving. We don't even like a few people coming here from Mexico, let alone the BILLIONS who are or soon will be experiencing agriculture related food shortages.

    Plus, a disproportionate number of people live on the coast lines of the world, where sea rise is being a problem right now, even in the US where our fabulous wealth let's us deal with it by just paying the cost. Many other countries won't be able to do that.

    One can hardly consider that our government is "in it" in any way one could worry about. Our government does what the people want (though maybe not what YOU want). And, right now that is almost zero.

    Efforts to slow warming give us more years to adapt.
     
  22. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Take climate change out of the whole thing. Humans cannot continue to pollute land, sea and air and assume no ill-effects. As world population increases this exacerbates the pollution issue. Whether the issue is a global climate change crisis, or a health issue of breathing toxic air, or sea-level rise with waves lapping up on coastal mansions, or regional inability to produce food, my position is we can and should do better. Just as we have littering laws we should also have pollution laws. And no one knows when some tipping point might be reached...
     
  23. Texas Skeptic

    Texas Skeptic Newly Registered

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    Read a book, Greenland has not been green in the last several million years, if ever.
     
  24. Sunsettommy

    Sunsettommy Well-Known Member

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    CO2 absorbs a small section of the IR spectrum about 6% of it and its main band is mostly outside of the OLWR part of the IR spectrum.

    Thus CO2 is a trace gas with a trace IR absorption range. The warm forcing amount from 1750 is very very small.

    ===

    "Next, here is the radical change in downwelling radiation at the surface from the increase in CO2 that is supposed to be driving the “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!” What I’ve shown is the change that in theory would have occurred from the changes in CO2 from 1750 to the present, and the change that in theory will occur in the future when CO2 increases from its present value to twice the 1750 value. This is using the generally accepted (although not rigorously derived) claim that the downwelling radiation change from a doubling of CO2 is 3.5 watts per square metre (W/m2). The purpose is to show how small these CO2-caused changes are compared to total downwelling radiation.

    [​IMG]
    The changes in downwelling radiation from the increase in CO2 are trivially small, lost in the noise …"

    LINK
    ===

    It also has a decreasing warm forcing effect as more of it is in the atmosphere.

    [​IMG]

    LINK
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2021
  25. Sunsettommy

    Sunsettommy Well-Known Member

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    Twice Mamooth makes a statement that NASA would say is FALSE!

    Post 58

    Post 32

    Here is what NASA says using their Satellite data, which I have showed to Mamooth before but he manage to completely.... forget.... again!

    NASA

    April 2016

    Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds

    Excerpt:

    From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

    An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2021

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