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Fun fact - helium is so called because it was discovered in the sun. 14 years later it was detected on Earth. My university physics department had a good amount of helium for chilling stuff down to near absolute zero. About a third of the total lab space on my floor, as far as I could tell, was piping/machinery for circulating and recycling what helium we had. Very little was allowed to escape. I remember a grad student telling me the dangers of a big leak in our liquid helium system - first of all the helium would flash to gas and expand rapidly, like an explosion. Deadly enough already. Further, the gaseous helium would be high enough pressure to displace the regular air on the floor (and we were in the basement) - we'd suffocate for lack of oxygen if we didn't get out quickly enough. Prolonged Panorama fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Apr 11, 2015 |
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Apr 11, 2015 20:26
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I dunno, that explosion looked like it was outside. So yeah, not much danger of running out of breathable air. Wikipedia backs me up, though: Wikipedia article on superconducing magnets" posted:If a large magnet undergoes a quench, the inert vapor formed by the evaporating cryogenic fluid can present a significant asphyxiation hazard to operators by displacing breathable air.
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Apr 11, 2015 22:22
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Av027 posted:... The focus at this point should be on providing only what we need to survive, in an effort to allow for the future survival of humanity (in something resembling our current global civilization). In other words, giving up unnecessary things like iPads and recreational boats (random examples) ... If basic necessities are provided for all, and the bullshit goes out the window, our needs can stabilize at much more sustainable levels, and people can still live comfortably, without going hungry ... I don't want to poo poo on you and your situation, but it doesn't make too much sense for you to rail at society for being wasteful and steeped in unsustainable consumption/luxury if you yourself can't even envision living on less than you make (so as to save up for retirement/pay off debts). Obviously sometimes poo poo hits the fan and you have to live hand to mouth or take on debt, and nobody can hold a rough patch (or five) against you. But even if you were a decade or two older it'd still be pretty defeatist and perversely spoiled of you to claim that you'll never be able to retire - live beneath your means in anticipation of no longer being physically able to work - or, in other words, live sustainably. Especially when you dismiss your entire generation as being too pampered to sacrifice maximum convenience in the present for a better future. Av027 posted:I'd like to share this optimism, but frankly, by the time younger generations make up the bulk of government and/or voters, this ship will have already sailed. The clock is ticking down to the final seconds. Maybe minutes if we're lucky, but maybe we're already too late. We need immediate and drastic change to control our crash landing, and waiting for renewables, or for a generation to die off is going to simply amount to too little, too late. I think you're getting a little too alarmist here. The world at large (meaning the general public) has been aware of this problem for what, twenty years? Ten? Yes, we could and should have moved way faster. And the next ten years unfortunately aren't going to see a complete overhaul of society. But things will only get better if a bunch of people are willing to work on making it so - and they have believe they're making a difference. You make it sound like a fool's errand. Yes, things will probably get pretty bad. But we can and should do what's in our collective power to do right now, even if it's not remotely a complete solution. You have to start somewhere, and as far as serious global awareness goes, we're basically right at the beginning of this. It's way too early to give up. Prolonged Panorama fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Nov 4, 2015 |
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Nov 4, 2015 00:30
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Hello Sailor posted:You missed the important bit. Some people append "... so let's keep doing business as usual" to the end of that and some people go with "... but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try". Which one would you say actual climate change deniers are and which one would you say folks in this thread are? This is my point with Av027 - they seem to say "we need to do a lot right now and it's probably not going to happen, and what will happen will be too little too late, so gently caress it." To the point where they're not really worried about their own retirement. Or, rather, they are, but have convinced themselves that the climate change doomsday will arrive first, so it won't matter. They'll be "rescued" from their unsustainable financial lifestyle by the collapse of civilization. Everyone is screwed, so why try to plan for the future? Av027 is firmly in the "depression" stage of climate change grief. Prolonged Panorama fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 00:21
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