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Alright. I have some game writing to do, so I'm going to clear out my head a little by posting about a couple of interesting things that came up, mostly via the International Herald Tribune and New Scientist.
There have been dire warnings for many years now about the Earth's magentic fields reversing, and the chaos that will ensue if this happens. I didn't realise before that part of the danger in this is that in reversing, the field will effectively go away for a while, exposing the surface of the planet to more of the unpleasant radiation it normally holds off. Here's some more about this, from the Telegraph, including the fact that a chunk of the field, around South Africa and the Southern Ocean, has apparently reversed already.
And also from New Scientist, a chap called William Ruddiman is arguing that humans prevented an ice age 5000 years ago, by engaging in agriculture, and providing global warming even then. Read more here. One of the things in the NS article is a bit about the Little Ice Age coinciding with massive death rates due to plague. "Fields and villages were abandoned", it says, "and reclaimed by fast-growing forests that sucked carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere resulting in the cooler temperatures felt worldwide." Basically, it says, not only do humans have vast effects on climate, but we've had these effects since before we had history as such.
There have been dire warnings for many years now about the Earth's magentic fields reversing, and the chaos that will ensue if this happens. I didn't realise before that part of the danger in this is that in reversing, the field will effectively go away for a while, exposing the surface of the planet to more of the unpleasant radiation it normally holds off. Here's some more about this, from the Telegraph, including the fact that a chunk of the field, around South Africa and the Southern Ocean, has apparently reversed already.
And also from New Scientist, a chap called William Ruddiman is arguing that humans prevented an ice age 5000 years ago, by engaging in agriculture, and providing global warming even then. Read more here. One of the things in the NS article is a bit about the Little Ice Age coinciding with massive death rates due to plague. "Fields and villages were abandoned", it says, "and reclaimed by fast-growing forests that sucked carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere resulting in the cooler temperatures felt worldwide." Basically, it says, not only do humans have vast effects on climate, but we've had these effects since before we had history as such.
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