Global Warming – Boon or Bane? Wednesday, Jun 13 2007

As we all know, most of the continental land lies in the northern hemisphere of our planet.

Northern hemisphere of earth has been undergoing periodic glacial ice ages. In every 100,000 years 90,000 years have been a glacial ice age followed by a intermediate shorter 10,000 years of moderate temperature.

The reasons for these repeated ice ages are not known. One reason might be the wobbling of earth’s axis. Or may be that Sun passes through some galactic dust cloud periodically there by blocking sunlight to earth which triggers an ice age! Ice age can also occur if some comet/asteroid explodes near sun, where its debris blocks sunlight to earth! Super Volcano, Nuclear wars etc might also cause shorter ice ages.

We have been without an ice age for more than 13000 years!! So we are already overdue for a new ice age in this cycle!! It may have started any time. Or has it already?

Ice age starts when the average atmospheric temperature goes down. The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of earth, like CO2 ensure that night side earth does not cool down suddenly to temperatures below zero! These gases maintain a minimum warmth on the earth there by making life possible.

Due to the man made pollution on earth the green house gases have been steadily increasing in this planet’s atmosphere. Environmentalists are absolutely right in saying that these green house gases have been causing an increase in earth’s temperature, which is definitely a cause of concern.

But then, is it possible that it is these very green house gases that have saved us from an ice age this time? The CO2 dumped into air by man made pollution has prevented the ice age this time? Is Global warming a boon which is preventing a global cooling?

Sometime back, I had read an interesting article somewhere on the internet related to this. CO2 in air is good to the growth of plant life. Ever since we have started polluting this planet by more and more CO2, algae growth has increased heavily in the oceans of the earth. As we all know, it is these algae which had once upon a time cleaned much of earth’s CO2 when life started evolving. Now that there is abundant CO2 in atmosphere, algae are thriving again to consume this CO2.

Imagine a scenario where in, in the next 50 years we come up with cleaner fuels, say from nuclear fuels or solar energy. Then we stop using petroleum related fuels in order to reduce pollution. Since we will be using environmental friendly cleaner fuels, the CO2 emission by industries and automobiles will go down to almost zero. Only CO2 emission in the atmosphere will be what life on earth breathes out.The existing chunk of CO2 by earlier man made pollution will be cleaned out over a period of time by the ocean’s algae.

But what after that? The excess algae created by pollution are still there in vast amounts in the oceans and now there is no CO2 by pollution for them to consume!!! They start consuming even the normal CO2 level in atmosphere which maintains a normal temperature on earth. In other words even the required green house gases will be gone!!! This would simply mean that we would have been accelerating towards a new ice age, just in a matter of one or two decades once we start using clean fuel!! In this case, even the ‘ice age’ would be man made!! Then this ice age would also be supported by the natural ice age which was suppressed by global warming earlier!! Will this new ice age ever end then???

So what am I trying to say here? Well, once we come up with cleaner fuels, we need to take global cleaning of man made pollution as a gigantic project and analyze all the angles and repercussions of global cooling. In this case, we need to ensure that the excess algae created in the oceans by global warming are wiped out first. We need to have a controlled reducing of CO2 level in atmosphere so that the natural CO2 level is always maintained,  which would prevent a permanent ice age on earth.

Cleaning out pollution on earth would be a huge task indeed and I think those nations which contributed most to the earth’s pollution should share an equivalent cost in cleaning earth too. Obviously USA will have to share atleast 50% of this cost. But looking at the impending collapse of US dollar, given that every American citizen already has a debt of over 28000$ on his/her head, I dont think US can pay for that

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Nuclear Ice Age? Sunday, Jun 3 2007

This post is the next part of my previous post ‘Ancient Nuclear War‘

Many people have asked me a sensible question about ancient nuclear wars. If it were really true that ancient Mahabharata war was a nuclear war, then where is the leftover radiation?

Well, a very good question indeed. I love enquiring deep into things

Nuclear bombs leave traces in the form of nuclear radiation which may last from few hundred to few thousand years depending on the half life of the nuclear fuel used and produced in the explosions. The larger the nuclear bomb, the more the leftover radiation!!

Well, but this is definitely not the case with thermonuclear bombs. Thermonuclear bombs are based on hydrogen and hence do not leave any radiational remnants. Tritium used in thermonuclear bombs has a half life of about only 10 years!

Nuclear explosions are used in modern thermonuclear weapons to generate high temperature required to start the fusion chain of hydrogen. But compared to equally destructive nuclear weapons, thermonuclear weapons leave very small amount of nuclear radiation from its fission based core.

Moreover, if the ancients had used some other technology (other than nuclear fission, say for ex: lasers) to initiate fusion reaction in thermonuclear weapons, then any question of left over radiation is almost completely ruled out!!

Now let’s get back to the proof that we have about ancient nuclear war. As stated in ‘Ancient Nuclear War‘ the very first proof is a clear description of the effects of nuclear weapons itself used in the war.

Then we have the huge casualty caused in this ancient world war which lasted only for about 18 days! Both warring sides were almost completely wiped out in this war. No side got a decisive victory. This itself is a striking feature of a nuclear war as we all know. In a nuclear war there are no winners, there are only survivors, if at all.

Next, the large amount of glass is an indication of a nuclear explosion or of any high temperature activity followed by immediate cooling. As found in modern nuclear testing sites like in Nevada desert, etc glass is a natural by-product of high temperature nuclear explosions which melts the clay and sand and cools it immediately afterwards to below its glass transition temperature.

Such glass covered areas have been discovered under the ancient site of Mohen Jo Daro of Indus valley civilization. Then we have the example of libyan desert glass spread over an area of 100 sq km, etc

Now one might argue that this is also possible in case of asteroid impacts! Well, yes, but then asteroid impacts live a crater proportionate to the impact energy, in other words proportionate to the amount of glass available!

In case of libyan desert we can again argue that probably the crater has been closed by the desert sand! But what about Mohen Jo Daro?

The previous ice age ended about 10000 years back. Vedas mention about vega being the pole star. Vega was pole star during the previous ice age. Could it be that, the previous ice age itself was a result of the thermonuclear mahabharata war?

A large scale thermonuclear world war where all countries of that period on earth took part in, causing a global destruction where both the warring sides were wiped out completely (estimated loss of life runs upto 14 billion!), well the Mahabharata war itself as a result of its nuclear weapons might have caused a new ice age to arrive.

The dust clouds resulting out of nuclear explosions prevent sunlight from entering into the earth’s lower layers and hence cool down the earth, and in large scale nuclear strikes these dust clouds stay on for years to come there by causing a nuclear ice age!

Was the previous ice age a nuclear ice age?
Will we witness another nuclear ice age?

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