Area54

The expansion of the universe stops and it all collapses towards a Big Crunch.

Agreed. Your argument appears sound to me. I'm not sure why MigL is missing its essence.

Perhaps, whyhellothere, it would be more productive for you to figure out why you are wrong and she is right. If you find you cannot do that, then as Koti suggested, ask her questions. Alternatively, ask for further clarification here. (As a final alternative, drop physics and take up politics, where opinions seem to matter more than facts.)

Well it's a good thing in that our similar opinions provide validation of our personal worldviews. If our personal worldviews are wrong and being a xenophobic, isolationist retard is actually positive, then we're screwed!

I was in a very metaphorical mood. By more I also meant better, more effectively applied, more strategically targeted, etc. But on the literal front, more guns allowed the Russians to win WWII in Europe. Doubtless there are many more examples.

I should have said involved, not involve. The bastards made me redundant. That's why I have time to be on this forum.

The stench has overwhelmed my olafactory glands, though I am impressed that it contains far fewer grammatical errors and stylistic oompahs than normal for such instruments.

1. Since they are martyrs they can neither agree, nor disagree. 2. Statistically, do you have evidence that more martyrs have enabled victory for their viewpoint than not? 3. I intended that guns could be taken metaphorically as well as literally, and that the ambiguity of that dichotomy would say something significant about the issue; that significance being left to the reader to create.

Part of my job responsibilites involve reading and editing technical reports, often by individuals working in, to them, a foreign language. I have become adept at extracting meaning from incoherent crap. Trust me - your writing in the OP and some subsequent posts is sub-standard. You are free to ignore this observation and continue to present your readers with unwelcome challenges, or you can try to improve. [I'll be happy to edit any drafts you care to pm me.] There you go. That is not one of the concepts that came across to me in your earlier posts. (Did anyone else pick that up?) I would disagree with that completely. The moral choice to act on behalf of ones family is motivated by instinctive drives. Consequently it should and does produce positive emotions in people. Arguably intellectual values are rationalisations of what is instinctively valued. I also have a personal objection, I should have raised earlier, with your qualification of our basic emotions as being "lower". That implies they are somehow inferior. Since our basic emotions arise instinctively and lie at the heart of who we are I find it silly to describe them as lower. But them I am proud to be an ape and a close relative of chimpanzees, so you may think me biased.

Gun Control. Which side wins? I have not read the entire thread so someone else may already have said this: the side with the most guns.

Excuse my profanity, but you are stating the fucking obvious. There are two things wrong with your post. Firstly, your statement of the bloody obvious is poorly written, stylistically unattractive and lacking in coherence and clarity. Secondly, you are so out of touch with reality you think you have had an original thought. It is not a new idea. Few people would object to its broad context and they would be wrong to do so. The idea has been tested, retested, assessed, validated and accepted in a plethora of books on psychology, human behaviour, business studies, autobiographies, classical literature, etc. Be pleased and satisfied that you have discovered for yourself what most of the rest of us have known since childhood. Most of life is rather neutral for most people most of the time. The really good times are comparatively rare. Fortunately this is often true of the really bad times too. It doesn't matter that your idea is not orginal, or that your attempt to describe it is second rate. You've made the discovery. Now use that to harvest those positive emotions and thereby experience more of the upbeat, good times. To help you on your way I've given you a Upvote for each of your posts. Edit: Apparently there is a limit on how many Upvotes you can give one person in one day and I reached it. So I've not been able to upvote all your posts, but I think I got about ten of them.

Matt, from where I sit you have taken some simple, self evident facts, then complicated them by using words with somewhat distorted meanings to describe those facts, while simultaneously appearing to claim you have had some startling insight. Marks out of 10 for clarity, 0.5. Marks out of 10 for value -2. Emotional value to me of having read this thead -20. You owe me for ten minutes of my life that I shall never be able to get back. If I were you I would take up crochet.

It is if you live in the Andromeda galaxy. (These Earth people are so parochial.)

Then you are essentially talking about an artificial lung. The technology for such a device, located in the human body, is beyond our present capacity. (I suspect, well beyond.) Perhaps a genetic engineering approach would be more appropriate, easier to achieve and more socially acceptable.

I am not well versed in human anatomy, or in medicine. However, it is my understanding that asthma is a condition that effects directly the lungs. The trachea is not involved. How would an artificial trachea help? Oops. Cross posted with John. The bronchial tubes are located in the lungs, not the trachea. But 10 out of 10 for wanting to cure a serious and growing complaint

This is a crucial point. I tried to express it in an earlier post where I refered rather clumsily to politicians as managers who did not do things, but caused things to be done. A better example might have been company directors who determine what a company will do, not how it does it. No it is not. Your role as a politician would be to decide what amount of effort if any we would put into combatting global warming. The how would be in the hands of government departments, agencies, or hired experts. (And for completeness make up some sentences with the words legislation in them.)

Didn't I just say that? It must be this new echo chamber.

You have got this so wrong, that even though CharonY and Strange have already corrected you I think the point needs to be stated even more strongly. This powerful piece is moral from top to bottom. It is a brilliant and scathing indictment of the mind set, policies and beliefs of significant portions of the Conservative party in the early 1980s. It is intended to make people laugh, true, but its fundamental purpose is to remind the public of the thinking that lurked behind the public utterances. The strategy is well conceived and flawlessly executed. Lure the audience in with the promise of laughter, then make the outrageous comments wearing the face of the "enemy" and let loose with both barrels.

Then I apologise for my lack of clarity. This is a more accurate response. There should be little doubt that genetically engineered plants could contribute in one or more ways to limiting global warming. Several approaches could be envisaged, but all would require detailed research to evaluate environmental impact beyond global warming and to assess cost/benefit ratios. Initial research, development, implementation and subsequent monitoring would be expensive in every case, so those cost/benefit analyses would be welcome. The example you have proposed seems unlikely to be one of the approaches that would ultimately be selected. Why? Your description envisages a process that does not mirror reality. My objective here has been to get you to think more critically. Swansont has praised you for your quantitative analysis. An analysis prompted by my deliberate questions. So while my work here is not done, its progressing somewhat.

What's the carbon footprint of the debate in this thread?

But still you will not concede that this is essentially a one time hit. Earlier you referenced making a saving every time the grass was cut, but the root system grows to saturation point and after that your one time hit is over. It does not repeat on every grass cut. Then why did you tell me to google soil carbon sequestration? By that act you were implicitly telling me where the carbon was going. Yet previously you had made no mention of this. You appeared to think the roots would just go on growing indefinitely, capturing more and more carbon. I kept trying to get you to understand all you got was a more voluminous root system that traped more carbon than at presence . . . once. And once only! No, it wasn't. I started out with the former. As you have begun to offer up more detail I have started criticising the latter. Warning - Patronising Remark Approaching. At your age I wasn't half as smart or half as ambitious or half as concerned as you are. You are to be complimented on all of that. However, that doesn't make you right, or on the best track for your goals. If you believe this, cite the peer reviewed literature that supports a significantly sized available soil reservoir below the planet's lawns. Deeper roots (which are the only practical root to grabbing more carbon from your GE grass) will rarely be going into virgin territory. There is capacity, but you need to demonstrate that this is significant. It's a one time hit. I thought asking for comments was an excellent idea, but the detail you offered of your notion was so sketchy there were no significant facts to check. Your original statement was very clear. We'll sequester carbon in the roots. When the fact that this was a one time hit, you switched to soil sequestration. Gish Gallop may have been a little harsh, so I'll rever to "moving the goalposts". And, no - I'm not going to check the facts for you. I'm going to give you an opinion based on my knowledge such as it is. That opinion will tell you where I think you are most likely to have errors. This is is a one time hit. By pulling soil sequestration you may have extended the length of that one time hit from two or three growing seasons to a decade or (at Most) two. But it remains a one time hit. And it's still a pretty small one. Your 35 million acres is less than 2% of the total.

Oh dear me. It's like a Gish Gallop. Raider, it's still a one time hit. And your original argument was for more roots to store the carbon, not a root system that would enhance soil sequestration. When you can concede you didn't think this through I may re-engage. Until then, thank you.

Keep being patient Area54. Which means that you only get a one time hit from moving carbon to the roots. The roots do not grow at the same pace or extent as the grass blades. There is a "saturation point" of root density. The only way to achieve your goal of "moving it to the roots" is to breed grass that digs deeper roots,but these will achieve a saturation point also, and your one time hit is over.

Patient Area54, be patient. What do you think happens to the carbon in cut grass? You don't need to answer that here. Just be sure you have the right answer, then amend your plan accordingly.

This typifies where I think you are going wrong. Here are some of the questions you should have asked, but didn't. Given that this approach targets people's lawns and recreational areas such as playing fields and parks, what proportion of the planets surface is covered by such? The increase in root dimensions is a one time return. Roughly how much additional CO2 could be absorbed per acre? As a ball park figure how much impact is this likely to have on atmospheric CO2? To what extent are ecosystems adapted to existing grasses dependent on the character of those grasses? Would they be equally vibrant with the GE grass? If not, what would the larger impact of loss of vibrancy be? Would wider blades restrict access to sunlight for a proportion of blades and thus reduce, perhaps eliminate, the benefit of the wider blades? Since wider blades give us a one time only carbon fix how does the cost of implementation stack up against the benefit? I am not saying you require to have the answers to those questions now, but you should be in a position to state, here is what we need to know, this is how we are going to find it out and thse are the decision nodes that will determine how, or if we implement. Ask any poultrerer, if they wish to remain in business they need to have a fair idea of how many chickens their hens will produce in a week, a month, a year. You might want to spend a day or two studying the structure of a business plan. It would be readily adaptable for the sort of mega-project you envisage here.