Alan Robinson

The fact is that GM food has a lot in common with banks: 1) Some huge companies have created a market for something we don't need 2) Neither they themselves nor the regulating authorities fully understand where the proposals will take us 3) When it gets out of hand, we are all affected, most of us badly. It is simply wrong to claim that plant for plant, GM gives bigger crops. A normal plant can put 100% of the light it receives into making tissue, while a GM plant must use some of that energy to create toxins, which by the way, we would have to eat. That is what GM does, makes the plant create toxins so we don't have to spray with pesticides. This way, we cannot even wash the filthy stuff off before eating it. :wacko:

I am far from well informed about all this GW, yet from my vantage point, it seems to me that science is quite a long way from understanding this whole complex business. Furthermore, in their quest to add to our knowledge, various factions focus intently on small, specific areas of investigation, while I haven't yet come across a movement to unify the various theories of the climate and weather. This results in the quibbling we see in the media, witness all the links posted in this partuicular thread alone. What I have noticed however, for example among the undoubtedly intelligent and well-meaning users of this forum, is that there seems to be a widespread interest in identifying patterns in natural phenomena, and making predictions on that foundation alone. Sunny starry skies puts it excellently above. There seems to me a considerable lack of explanation about what causes what, and how. There is too much belief, and not enough knowledge. Perhaps that is what you mean by science fiction, and I'd certainly agree. Science works undoubtedly, though what counts for knoweldge at one point in time is usually expanded upon by future generations. It would be very refreshing if science was a little humbler.

I see MPs think it it time to move on from climategate. http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-12269493 They conclude that the science behind man-made global warming builds upon essentially sound ideas. Well, no serious objection to the interaction of the earth's infra-red radiation and atmospheric carbon dioxide has ever been put forward, so they can easily put that. What is disputed is the importance of the interaction. Anyway, most people can no longer be in doubt that the climate, weather and atmospheric processes are far more complex than just carbon dioxide and infra-red radiation. Maybe the MPs are right; move on and get an altogether better understanding of not just the atmosphere in isolation, but our overall environment to the extent that we can investigate it. While we are at it, we can involve the other closely related problems facing Homo sapiens, such as energy and lifestyle, gross over-population, debt, and economic theory that supposes everything infinite.

Everything should be as simple as possible Jethro, but not simpler. You omitted bankers and spongers. By the way, I suppose watchers includes regular viewers of Coronation Street, Eastenders and the like?

It says a lot about technology when we are putting up windmills to generate electricity. Like you, I think geo-thermal sounds very good, because when you think of it, the world is supposed to be 4.5 billion years old, and yet there are still great temperatures inside, the planet not having cooled off. I gather radioactive decay is responsible, and in that is so, we are sitting on a huge furnace that could keep us going for a very long time. However, the technical challenges are in most cases insurmountable. Concerning wind turbines, late 2009 they put up 2 * 2.1 MW machines down the road from me. Now of course, their output is proportional to the square of the wind speed, and they only produce 2.1 MW when it is blowing a gale. In a Beaufort force 4, they generate about the same power as a lorry engine. More importantly though, the national grid installations have to be sized to accommodate the maximum output of the turbines, no matter how infrequently it occurs. In our case, a cable had to be laid for something like 11 km to the nearest sub-station, which itself had to be re-built to receive this new supply. The roads leading to the turbine site had to be widened to get the things in place, and the excavations for foundations were considerable. I cannot say just how much steel and concrete went into the foundations, but it too is a very considerable factor. Yet another point worthy of mention is that a provision of the permission to erect these two turbines, three others, just 12 years old, had to be taken down again. Now I hear that these three turbines were in any case unreliable and nearing the end of their lives, but it seems to me 12 years is a disappointingly short lifetime. Furthermore, I checked, and the copper cables laid in the ground to these three turbines has not been recovered for recycling. All-in-all, wind turbines are probably the best we can look to in our part of the world in the longer term, but like so much else, I believe there is much propaganda involved. Can anyone explain why the Swedish government is so deeply involved in putting up wind turbines everywhere? Ever heard of the power company Vattenfall? Nuclear fission can serve us for a while, but is subject to the same resource limitations as fossil fuel systems, while other processes such as fusion, I'd say, remain firmly in the realms of Star Trek type imaginings.

See, I'd say we have here a good indication of what is wrong with the developed world's unsustainable lifestyle today. Entitlement. We live in an age in which many people feel entitled to so much. Of course, politicians will not openly reduce people's entitlements if they can help it, and the result will surely be that nature will do it for them instead. So much for cornucopian economists :wacko:

Ask any wind tunnel or towing tank engineer or the designers of the Humber Estuary scale model used in preparation for the construction of the Humber Bridge. You'll be told that there are considerable difficulties scaling up model tests to real life. The experiment you describe is useless when trying to imitate the boundary between the Gulf Stream and, say, the Labrador Current. Just for guidance, when estimating the power required to drive a 300 m long ship at an economic speed, a one metre long model of the vessel is useless, while a 6 metre long model can be used with caution. Even then, the empirical formulae used to scale the model results up to full size have been developed over 150 years or so, and are still subject to tweaking. Anyway, I'd like to hear from the author of the piece quoted concerning the Reynolds Number in a classroom tank, and the Reynolds Number relating to the interface between the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current.

This subject was discussed in another thread recently, and at the risk of being tedious, let me again quote from The Mariner's Handbook, sixth edition, which is the Admiralty's core volume of a collection of publications that describe both the world's oceans and coastal waters for the use of mariners. The information contained has been gathered over centuries by eye witnesses. Concerning ocean surface currents: "4.20, it is emphasised that ocean currents undergo a continuous process of change throughout the year. .........Over by far the greater part of all oceans, the individual currents experienced in a given region are variable, in many cases so variable that on different occasions currents may be observed to set in most, or all directions................The constancy of the principal currents varies to some extent in different seasons and in different parts of the current. It is usually about 50 to 75 per cent, and rarely exceeds 85 per cent, and then only in limited areas. Current variability is mainly due to the variation of wind strength and direction." I have misplaced my copy of Ocean Passages for the World, but that excellent companion to The Mariner's Handbook contains a very fine description of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic currents, dating way back to the days of sailing ships trading with the Far East and Chile. The Gulf Stream is very variable, and people have known these things for donkey's years. I am not holding my breath over such sensational postulations.

Sorry if someone else has made this comment, but the Pleistocene Epoch (Great Ice Age) began about 1,600,000 years ago, and ended about 10,000 years ago. Are you suggesting that towards the end of the Pleistocene there had been some warming prior to the cooling you mention? That would be necessary for Europe to "drop back" into ice age conditions. Detailed investigations into the history of the North York Moors show that deforestation by the local inhabitants began about 10,000 years ago, meaning before 8,000 BC there must have been a warm climate for low alpine tundra to become broadleaf forest. Something doesn't quite add up here I think.

Thanks for that, I must have had one too many bottles of my excellent pale ale, and put it back-to-front. Indicentally, I'm going to stop quoting DMI, because their articles have a habit of disappearing from their website, such as the one around mid December that stated a mild period would set in just before Christmas.

TÃ¥singe Island, Denmark. We had virtually the coldest December on record here, and yet there are eranthis shoots popping up those places where the residents don't spray chemicals, rake and dig borders that should be left alone.

All I can say is that ever since Socrates, people have been convinced in their beliefs, and yet science and technology has moved on, at least to the peak where we could wage world wars, since when it has been a race to find cheaper workers and automation. At this particular stage of human affairs, we need to be particularly careful what we do. There are far too many of us for one thing, and for another, our lifestyle is totally dependent on finite resources that are rapidly ebbing away. Forget geoengineering, it really doesn't matter much, and we'd probably get it catastrophically wrong anyway. It is only a new idea for a few rich people to get even richer. Instead, start thinking of generations to come, that need to be far smaller than we, and that have some resources left to sustain just a reasonable lifestyle.

I have several books that are highly regarded among sailors, and which go into what amateur mariners regard considerable detail about weather forecasting, and yet I have my reservations about them. One of them, describing Buys Ballots Law, mentions that “facing the wind in the northern hemisphere, the centre of low pressure is about 90 to 120 degrees to the observer’s rightâ€. My problem with this is that many people I have sailed with go around thinking there is a depression close by, which makes them unnecessarily apprehensive, and spoils the passage for them as they expect to be tossed about before long. Why couldn’t the author simply put that Buys Ballots Law indicates which direction the isobars lay in the observer’s location? There doesn’t have to be a low centre involved when using Buys Ballot. My question however to the Netweather forum concerns a description of a severe storm on Sunday, July 29th 1956, which caused great damage to the sailing boats participating in the RORC Channel Race that year. It seems the race started on the evening of Friday 27th in very reasonable weather. Through Saturday 28th, the boats made their way over the English Channel to Le Havre, during the morning of which passage a low 998 was located some 700 miles WSW of Land’s End, with fronts extending south and south west. Its track was about ENE. Around 0001 GMT on Sunday 29th, the Met Office issued gale warnings for sea areas Portland and Plymouth, but not Dover or Wight, which incidentally is where some of the very strongest gusts were experienced later on. At this point, the low had deepened to 985 and was close to Land’s End. By 0600 it was centred just off Barnstaple and had intensified to 977, and at 1000 it was over Gloucester, still 977. As the cold front passed through there was an extraordinarily rapid rise of the barometer. The odd feature of this storm, which reached Beaufort force 11 at Lizard light, is that the devastating winds were very localised by also very gusty. At Thorney Island, the mean wind was 37 knots, yet the gusts reached 67 knots. One meteorologist – whose rather colourful analysis I have before me – suggests that for one thing, it was almost as though the jet stream had descended to the surface, and for another, that the elevations of Dartmoor, Exmoor, and the Welsh mountains determined the depression’s track, which followed the River Severn. What I’d like to know from Netweather forum members is a), do they know of any instance when the jet stream has descended to the Earth’s surface? and B) how likely is it that land elevations as modest as Dartmoor and the Black Mountains can affect the track of a vigorous low? While I am at it, at sea in a small sailing vessel, I keep a keen eye on the barometer, and years ago, I realised that if the glass fell 4mb in 4 hours, I was probably in for an unpleasant puff of wind, and more than this I needed to prepare for a gale. I read however that the Met Office in years gone by would only issue a gale warning if a single observer had recorded a fall of 10 mb in three hours. While I know to my dismay that gales can come on without any drop in pressure, and indeed with a rising barometer, does anyone have a decent rule of thumb for a minimum rate of pressure fall that can be confidently said to precede gale force winds?

The Danish Met Institute put it on their website. The Danish criteria for white Christmas is not snow laying over a certain proportion of the country, but snow falling. DKs climate is pretty much like Northumberland or eastern Scotland without the hills, except when the Scandinavian high sets in during winter and the sea in bays and between the islands freezes.

Just out of interest, here’s how an accurate weather forecast for the period November 1st 2010 to 18th January 2011 would have looked for the Danish islands, 392 nautical miles across the North Sea from Scarborough. NOVEMBER 2010 November is expected to display three distinct weather patterns. Mild, maritime conditions will prevail for the first two weeks of November, with temperatures well in excess of normal. Depressions will approach southern Scandinavia both from the west and from the Mediterranean Sea, and towards the end of this period, a vigorous storm is expected to cross the United Kingdom and pass between Norway and Denmark. The passage of this deep low will mark a significant change. Conditions are expected to become very quiet with slightly warmer temperatures than normal, until about the last week of November when extraordinary cold weather and snow will suddenly transform tranquil autumn into deep winter. Temperatures at the end of the month in Denmark will be the same as in Moscow. DECEMBER 2010 December is expected to be severely cold, and may even become the coldest since records began well over 100 years ago. This will be the first time in 150 years that there occurs a white Christmas in two consecutive years. The temperature and pressure patterns of November will be reversed, and from around 12th December a steady decline in temperature will occur. Nonetheless, the month’s lowest barometer reading – though not very low - will occur on 17th December, while on November 16th, the month’s highest pressure will be recorded. Pressure will not “swell up over northern central Europe in the days before the full moon on the 21stâ€, and there will be no “important storm event†in that connection. This low pressure of the 17th will occur in connection with a very extensive cold front laying almost east – west, from Ireland to Sweden, intensifying the harsh winter conditions all across western Europe. The sea will freeze between the islands towards the end of the month. Particularly, around Christmas, there will be severe snowfall with drifts disrupting road and rail traffic. On Bornholm, tracked military vehicles will be required to provide emergency services, and all normal activity on the island will come to a standstill. JANUARY 2011 A slight thaw is expected around New Year, and from the second week of January, temperatures will rise to well above normal again. No sudden change of weather pattern is expected to take place around 12th January, as happened around 12th November and 12th December. Approaching the January full moon, a gradual cooling will occur to temperatures just slightly above normal. OUTLOOK FOR JANUARY 19TH TO MARCH 1ST ?

Not much rain here in Denmark, but this afternoon I recorded 7 degrees C! I have just 2 patches of snow left, and the sea ice between the islands is definitely melting.

Nice link Jethro. I notice Landscheit, Carl Smith and Geoff Sharp were not thought worthy of mention. I'd like to debate Descartes and Einstein at some point, and though this is obviously not the place, can I just say that time is not the same thing as the position of a clock's hands. My son gets infuriated with me when we discuss what constitutes knowledge - he's an admirer of Kant while I never progressed beyond (Xenophon's version of) Socrates - and for what its worth, he agrees with you that I am looking for certainties that do no exist. No harm in continuing the search though is there?

Well, having read Landscheit’s paper on the Swinging Sun, I am dismayed. I may well be mistaken, but it seems to me from the number of references in such a short paper that Landscheit took chosen passages from other people’s work, assembled them to suit his own purposes, and presented the whole to a sympathetic, chosen audience. Perhaps he didn’t suggest it, but the idea that all the mass in the solar system moves about a fixed centre is of course rubbish, because even looking at the solar system in isolation, the position of the centre of mass moves according to the momentary position of the various bodies in their orbits, just as a ferry’s centre of gravity would move continuously if all the cars and lorries were driving about aboard ship. But Landscheit didn’t touch upon that as far as I can see. Moreover, he doesn’t even enter upon a coordinate system with which to define the location of the solar system’s centre of mass. Nonetheless it is a serious oversight, as the variation in the centre of mass position would in fact result in other absolute solar motions – wobbles - that Landscheit does not include in his considerations. As Einstein said, everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. I am no genius, but if even I can spot such omissions, no wonder mainstream science hasn’t taken Landscheit seriously. Just where his calculations of torque come from is unclear, because he didn’t develop his one or two equations in a clear, logical step-by-step manner that allows readers to follow his reasoning, and even the symbols used were not clearly defined. That does not surprise me, as mysticism relies precisely on being vague and innuendo, and the practice might very well be related to the causes of the Reformation, as conservative scholars in those days maintained the Bible and church ceremony should remain solely in a defunct language incomprehensible to common people, presumably so they couldn’t face contradiction. Although his abstract is conveniently indistinct, using expressions indicating possibility rather than stating facts, he implies gravity is behind the formation of sunspots, yet offers no explanation why. Wisely so, I would say, for the matter is one of great speculation. In this connection, mainstream science today cannot explain with any certainty how sunspots are formed, and many maintain that there is little or no connection to be made between sunspots and climate on Earth. Surely, if the aim of science is to understand natural phenomena, and Landscheit had made a discovery, it would have been hailed as a major moment in history, at least by a minority of accomplished people. Celebrations have not ensued however, and Landscheit’s ideas must remain be tenuous at best for the time being. At the very least, the matter remains controversial, and not a starting point for a beginner like me. Reconstruction of the past is fraught with difficulty. Landscheit refers to sunspot activity observations dating back to antiquity, itself a time of considerable superstition such as the flat earth, belief in deities, and consulting the oracle of Apollo through the incomprehensible and intoxicated outbursts of Pythia at Delphi, which, conveniently for some, had to be interpreted by priests. While I am a great admirer of Pythagoras, science and reliable observations of sunspots only date back to Galileo, and as far as I know, only tiny scraps of Plato’s original writings have survived, which casts doubt on the authenticity of anything we read purporting to be from those early times. Even during the Maunder Minimum, hardly any observations of sunspots were made, and it was only realised that changes were in progress when the very few observers at the time registered increasing sunspot activity, thus exciting greater attention. The coincidence of the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age has not been supplemented with explanations of how one might have caused the other. Regarding dendrochronology, the latest climate debate has raised new doubts about the whole theory of carbon-14 dating, which already uses a calibration curve that itself is not straightforward. Now it seems that in light of more accurate data collection in recent times that the suitable tree species are not making rings entirely as the conventional theory describes, and that other factors have been overlooked, such as atmospheric carbon amounts and tree stress due to varying climate. Dates, therefore, also need to be taken with caution. In my perplexed state it occurred to me that Landscheit makes out that the weakest natural force known to man, and which as far as we know has no influence on the internal properties of everyday matter, is at least partly, if not wholly responsible for the formation of sunspots. Yet the sun is an immense body with core temperatures supposed to be 15*106 K, while those at the photosphere are a comparatively meagre 5,800 K. Vast swirls are visible in the sun’s disc from Earth, and it is reasonable to assume there must be inside the sun enormous ionised gas convection currents of almost incomprehensible energy. In the face of this, Landscheit implies that puny gravity plays some sort of deciding role in the formation of sunspots that he conveniently does not enlarge upon. If Landscheit was reserving his explanations until later – having read this paper I had enough and didn’t read the others – he was engaging in sensationalism, but I doubt it, and as far as I have read him, he was no scientist and didn’t use the scientific method of observe, consider, explain, and test. Incidentally, I am with Sir Alfred Jules Ayer on this one, and cannot conceive why a matter be held true when there is no agreed manner of verifying it. On the other hand, we could possibly devise a null experiment. Does the thermal efficiency of the boilers at Long Drax power station vary according to the position of the planets in the heavens? No, and if it did, everyone would demand a rebate on their electricity bills every time the celestial conditions justify Landscheit’s arguments.

Perhaps it is me being too literal? Southerly latitudes are all south of the equator, or put another way, a location with southerly latutude is closer to the south pole than the north. Perhaps your meaning was low latitude?

It seems Landscheit's work in this connection was all done following his retirement, that is, when he finally had time to persue his personal interests. For this reason I think it justified to at least suspect his astrological leanings could have motivated him, and therefore your comment that susperstition isn't involved is itself open to debate, for astrology is superstitious. Regarding the moon's influence on water here on Earth, the tides are well understood, though not all realise that the sun's gravitational force here on Earth is significantly greater than the moon's, and in any case, dynamics, not gravity, causes the different heights of two successive high waters. Water divining is however highly controversial, and I have myself exposed a charlatan who claimed for all the world that while digging the foundations for my house, could find the location of existing water mains and drains using divining rods; I took from his pocket the diagram supplied to him by the council, which as it happens was inaccurate, which proves his claims of divination were a sham. I'd say that while there is no reason to dismiss any unorthodox idea that is genuinely put forward in the interest of increasing our knowledge, there have been thousands of attention-seeking charlatans in this world. My approach is to judge those things that affect me on their merit, not on my preferences. As far as I can gather, Landscheit didn't make sufficient predictions to illustrate a repeatable pattern, and open-mindedness allows that while his successful predictions are noteworthy, his work on the whole does not amount to science. His first paper concerning the sun's motion about the solar system's centre of mass is nothing more than the sort of calculation I myself have made for decades concerning ship motions in a regular sea, so there is absolutely nothing new in that. We need not be in awe of integrals of impulses and torques, no matter how weak they must be. I shall continue reading Landscheit's work, but for the moment I have the impression from his first paper that he is simply putting his own interpretation on other people's investigations. Most disappointingly however, the one paper I read in no way attempted to explain the processes in the sun that should cause the undisputed observed phenomena. By the way. The solar system is part of the Milky Way galaxy, the mass of which I suppose can be estimated using gravitational theories. I shall be interested to read if Landscheit has accounted for the galaxy's mass, or perhaps discounted it as insignificant. Then of course, I suppose I'll end up back with the old conflict between general relativity , quantum field theory, and gravity. Oh dear

Jethro, I have never previously come across astrology type A and astrology type B. I concede there are various aspects of astrology, but my information is that they are all a divination technique that uses assumptions about the effect various heavenly bodies have on Earthly affairs, astral omens if you will, for the presence of deities in the skies is disputed even by astrologers I think. As you are clearly very intelligent, I don't need to point out that astrology goes all the way back into antiquity, further back than the Hellenes. Having pointed it out all the same, the basic ideas were postulated when the known universe was thought geo-centric, and prior to the discovery of all the planets in our solar system. In modern times, attempts have been made to show astrological predictions have merit, and yet time and again, it has been shown they do not. Now, I find it a little problematic when Landscheit is described as an astrologer - type A or type B doesn't matter - because he was apparently swayed by supersticious ideas. I haven't had time to follow up on all you so kindly have pointed out - I shall in due course - but as I mentioned in another post, I mistrust metaphysics, which brings me to replacing "the word philosophy with science". We have unfortunately seen in recent times how people purporting to be scientists are apt to present a coloured view of things. That is either because they are not scientists in the true meaning of the word, or they are shameless enough to supress what they know in order to benefit somehow. Neither are they philosophers in the true sense of the name. Anyway, philosophy and science can no longer be exchanged as equals. I cannot say just when the ultimate split occurred - I can find out what philosophy thinks of it - but certainly by the time Logical Positivism was causing an uproar among adherents of metaphysics, science had been a mature discipline in its own right for quite some time. You might do me the favour of saving me pointless searching, by putting me in the direction of Landscheit's reasoning of how planets are thought to affect what goes on within the sun. I do not at all dismiss the possibility of such mechanisms, but for the moment, not that I am in any way an expert, something suggests it is most unlikely. Concerning my sister-in-law and her comforting imaginations, I am sure you are right, and most people do the same thing. My cynicism in that respect has frequently gotten me into hot water, but then, I'd still rather face facts than live my life entertaining fantasies, that way I'll die satisfied I did all I could to understand where I had been for so long.

As mentioned, I am very uninformed about what goes on between the sun, the cosmos, our atmosphere, the climate and weather. My approach to becoming better informed is to take notice of interesting phenomena that might be influential in these affairs, consider them, and if there are reasonable propositions, then look for explanations. Experimentation in this particular subject is presumably far beyond my own private means. You will notice that nowhere in my approach does belief or pre-conception come into it. I am an open-minded agnostic, and always prepared to consider a proposition, provided it concerns a topic that interests me. Now the same cannot be said about astrologers, at least as far as astrology is concerned. Indeed, my sister-in-law practices palmistry and prepares horoscopes using a computer program she purchased, and furthermore, to illustrate how I see her mindset, I suspect that had she been British she might well have become a Wiccan. Having observed the circles she moves in, I feel justified in saying that astrologers believe ideas they find appealing, and readily ignore that their notions are not facts. This preference for appealing (and reassuring) beliefs can become quite bigoted and passionate when, for example, she suddenly gets the faint whiff of tobacco smoke in the house and proclaims the presence of her deceased mother's spirit - who was a smoker by the way - when in fact it is her husband who has sneaked out into the shed for a quick fag. He is a secret smoker. Would you be kind enough to explain what is completely incompatible between Landscheit's astrology and that required for the production of horoscopes? I am sorry but I cannot grasp your meaning, and I fear that on deeper investigation Landschiet's approach might be metaphysical.

I thought the USA was entirely in the northern hemisphere

Here's another way of looking at Peak everything and awareness. The industrial revolution started in the UK, and many other countries were decades behind in their technological development. Now I'd say that the UK has experienced enormous economic driven changes ever since WW1, and for many decades we have had a greatly over-populated island home to a post-industrial society, living in industrial squalour, but pretty much without any industry worthy of mention. Nothing new has come along other than greedy Thatcherism, which is why we all cut each others' hair and sell insurance to each other. Napoleon Buonaparte was right, the British are a nation of shopkeepers. Meanwhile, most of the other established industrial countries failed to see what was in store for them too if they simply carried on growing along the same lines, and now they are suffering the same fate at the UK. It seems politicians everywhere have no practical vision of how society could be in, say, 2025 and 2050, and there is therefore no plan, and consequently no appropriate action. The fact is, the entire western world is busy attending to problem after problem, leaving us walking backwards into the future, and the USA is walking fastest. If peak everything really does come to pass, then people in the USA are facing the greatest changes in their lifestyle, and they know that already. Meanwhile, in Europe, people are trusting it will be back to business as usual before long. It is no good bringing peak everything up for wide public discussion, because the general public isn't interested. I'd say that while climate change might be serious, it is NOT the biggest problem facing Homo sapiens. Economists have for ages made assumptions that do not correspond with reality - unlimited growth - and politicians have gone along with their nonsense. I even heard of one politician who said "so what if we run out of copper? We'll just make some more!" Homo sapiens? Well, maybe not so sapiens after all. By the way, I liked the mention of a steady-state economy and no debt, but somehow I don't think many people will agree with me. Whenever I mention sustainable living, people tease me about a society of nymphs and shepherds, and dancing round maypoles, and then go on to tell me about their next three-week holiday in Thailand.

Thanks for that. As mentioned, I am not expousing an opinion because I am quite uninformed on the topic, but my problem is that if this is scientific, as far as I can see the theory is not well formulated, let alone tested. The link you provided seemed to amount to observations of coincidences. I didn't find plausible explanations of what is supposed to be going on. Then, even if plausible explanations were available, I'd need not only to see means of confirming the theory, but also the failure of experiments that would disprove the theory. Until then, I'll remain sceptical. Philosophy used to be the father of all science, but thanks to metaphysical speculation, that is no longer the case.