Why no Magnetic Field Alarmists?

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Amongst the doomladen scenarios TV disaster documentaries present for our alarm few speak of the only one that is scientifically verifiable and that is the weakening of the earth's magnetic field.

A lot of serious scientific work is being done on this and why the environmentalists have not grabbed onto to this most serious of threats leaves me puzzled. As the title of this thread indicates we know what happens when a small rocky planet near the sun experiences a serious loss of its magnetic field. It becomes Mars.

Its suggested that the earths magnetic field is powered by a colossal 'nuclear reactor' at the center of the earth fueled by natural uranium that settled there by virtue of its density. Well nuclear fuels have a half life and the earth is mighty old. Could our reactor be running short of fuel? Will our magnetic field weaken and wither away long before our sun vaporizes our world? Could be and it could happen soon but why are not the leftist lemmings sounding the alarm?

My guess is because there is no profit or political power to be gained by beating this drum. As man is helpless to affect the earth's magnetic field and as no taxes or laws can be passed to mitigate ' magnetic erosion' the leftist shrugs and sees no point in forming activist groups to publicize this lethal threat to our existance.
 
Billy Chyldyshe said:
As the title of this thread indicates we know what happens when a small rocky planet near the sun experiences a serious loss of its magnetic field. It becomes Mars.
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Not if the weakening of the magnetic field is only temporary, lasting on the order of hundreds of years as the field flips over. This happens every few hundred thousand years or so (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal#Future_of_the_present_field).
Could our reactor be running short of fuel? Will our magnetic field weaken and wither away long before our sun vaporizes our world? Could be and it could happen soon but why are not the leftist lemmings sounding the alarm?
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Probably because (at least from what I've heard) it's not expected to happen for another two billion years or so, and even then it would take millions of years for the land masses to erode and the atmosphere to escape.
 
Latest news: Inevitable event which will happen far in the future not receiving massive publicity.
 
Billy Chyldyshe said:
My guess is because there is no profit or political power to be gained by beating this drum. As man is helpless to affect the earth's magnetic field and as no taxes or laws can be passed to mitigate ' magnetic erosion' the leftist shrugs and sees no point in forming activist groups to publicize this lethal threat to our existance.
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No, it's because the event is likely well into the future, and is compeltely out of our control. Do you usually lump concerned people under the lable leftist, or are you just trying to provoke an argument?
 
I don't think they know how far away the day is...its impossible to say isnt it?

The fact is its not the earth's atmosphere being stripped away that need concern us, it is the deadly radiation levels we could expect to start receiving as the earth's magnetic field weakens.

IF standing outside at sea level becomes the equivalent of being at 35,000 feet in terms of solar radiation our goose is cooked, literally.

We are seeing the magnetic poles wandering rapidly. While this maybe just a prelude to a periodic reversal of the poles that too is not without great impact for it takes sometime for the magnetic fields to reform after such a reversal or so I have been told.

Unlike the gradual climatic changes the acolytes of GW predict may happen we KNOW the earth's magnetic poles reverse and this will happen suddenly. Unlike GW where,should it happen, would allow mankind to adjust to slightly different conditions, a magnetic field reversal could make it dangerous to spend any length of time outdoors especially if the sun is acting up.
 
guthrie said:
No, it's because the event is likely well into the future, and is compeltely out of our control. Do you usually lump concerned people under the lable leftist, or are you just trying to provoke an argument?
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LOL it doesnt take much to provoke an argument here..just a belief or opinion is enough for a clique of rabid loons to start screaming abuse...its more akin to a childrens playground than a grown up forum.

I dont lable anyone..I'm neither a tattooist or a goth metal piercing expert..although you might consider buttoning you lips together so that we might be spared your ranting.
 
Billy Chyldyshe said:
LOL it doesnt take much to provoke an argument here..just a belief or opinion is enough for a clique of rabid loons to start screaming abuse...its more akin to a childrens playground than a grown up forum.

I dont lable anyone..I'm neither a tattooist or a goth metal piercing expert..although you might consider buttoning you lips together so that we might be spared your ranting.
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Billy, I'm no alarmist and neither am I one to rant or rave about anythings. So allow me a moment to inject a bit of calm information into this dicussion. :)

Magnetic pole reversals have happened many, many times over the past millions of years. There's no evidence of them having caused great disruption on our planet. On the other hand, there IS ample evidence found in magnetized strata that the events were fairly benign overall. The transtion doesn't appear to happen quickly BUT the field never completely fades away either. The process seems to be that the field weakens a fair amount, then several independent sets of poles appear (which still provides some sheilding against the solar wind) and finally the poles will stabilize back to the original two - only reversed.

The magnetic record seems to indicate that at no time are we left completely unsheilded. And if that proves NOT to be the case this time around, we would have plenty of advance warning to take precautions. Sheilding the population would not be an impossible task in most of the developed world. Third-world countries are a different matter and I'm not equipped to address that part of it.
 
Billy Chyldyshe said:
LOL it doesnt take much to provoke an argument here..just a belief or opinion is enough for a clique of rabid loons to start screaming abuse...its more akin to a childrens playground than a grown up forum.

I dont lable anyone..I'm neither a tattooist or a goth metal piercing expert..although you might consider buttoning you lips together so that we might be spared your ranting.
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So now your trying to live up to your surname?
You did notice that I merely suggested you might be looking for an argument?
You did also notice that your first post conflated leftists and environmentalists, suggesting that they were lemmings and alarmists, and the whole thread is phrased as a lure to people who might consider themselves to be of a left wing persuasion or green.


Also, you have failed to provide any evidence regarding a uranium fuelled core. My geology textbook says that seismological data backed up by lab measurements demonstrate that it is mostly made of iron. It would be interesting to find out if they have made any advance on that.
 
Contrary to popular belief, the earth’s magnetic field is pretty trivial when it comes to shielding us from radiation. Most of the radiation is blocked by the earth’s atmosphere. The shuttle astronauts orbit deep inside the magnetosphere, but they still need radiation shielding because they are out of the atmosphere.

Even if the field went away and never came back, it would take millions of years for our atmosphere to be stripped away - short on the time scale of the planet's life, but far too long for us to need to worry about.
 
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There have been many reversals in the past. This is an old-topic here at Sciforums (search the psuedoscience forum for "polar reversal" or "Brunhes-Matuyama").

None of the previous reversals resulted in mass-extinctions or (the more woo claim) tectonic plate shifts. Indeed, the fossil record is very clear in many of the reversals that there were proliferations of both fauna and flora before, after and during the reversals.

The most significant problem we'll face is the lack of magnetic pole with which to navigate by. Lucky for us we have a decent constellation of GPS satellites now.

Many researchers have even concluded the magnetic field itself isn't "gone" but reduced as the pole wanders and the Earth's internal gyro spins back up. Ostensibly the Mag-field is created by the spinning iron core.

If you search for the terms above, there are citations to many recent articles on polar-wander and reversal from peer-reviewed journals.
 
As your abstract suggests there have been many magnetic reversals, perhaps thousands over the history of this planet.

A few fossils aren't representative samples for us to make any informed estimate about the next one except that it will happen and is overdue.

Yes life survived. It always does but if I were to take a sample of life forms existing at sea level today and expose them to the solar and deep space radiation they would receive at the top of Mt. Everest for 100 to 1000 generations I think you would agree we would see profound changes as chromosomes and DNA are knocked about by sub atomic particles. We might see changes take place after a very few generations, maybe even just one.

OTOH the comparison with GW is apt in that we have arrived at our current economic equilibrium over a very long and carefully tested path. Our current energy consumption is that necessary to sustain the human population at current levels. Mess with that and you disturb this carefully developed equilibrium with untold consequences.

Even the best economic forecasters don't try and peer much more than a couple of years down the road yet we are to allow some climatologist to prescribe energy use levels for decades to come. How bold of them. How dangerous too
 
Billy Chyldyshe said:
As your abstract suggests there have been many magnetic reversals, perhaps thousands over the history of this planet.

A few fossils aren't representative samples for us to make any informed estimate about the next one except that it will happen and is overdue.

Yes life survived. It always does but if I were to take a sample of life forms existing at sea level today and expose them to the solar and deep space radiation they would receive at the top of Mt. Everest for 100 to 1000 generations I think you would agree we would see profound changes as chromosomes and DNA are knocked about by sub atomic particles. We might see changes take place after a very few generations, maybe even just one.

OTOH the comparison with GW is apt in that we have arrived at our current economic equilibrium over a very long and carefully tested path. Our current energy consumption is that necessary to sustain the human population at current levels. Mess with that and you disturb this carefully developed equilibrium with untold consequences.

Even the best economic forecasters don't try and peer much more than a couple of years down the road yet we are to allow some climatologist to prescribe energy use levels for decades to come. How bold of them. How dangerous too
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See? There lies the difference between your beloved non-science of astrology and true science. Economic forecasters don't attempt to predict too far ahead because there will be social and business events that cannot be predicted far in advance - things like the collapse of Enron through fraud though it hap the appearance of being very healthy. Other things like unexpected election results or the breakout of hostilities in some country(ies). Politics can never be predicted very accurately and they certainly have effects on economies - even in other countries.

Climatologists, however, generally have much more solid data to rely on. Because of that, they can make more accurate predictions over longer periods of time.

However, your lack of basic scientific knowledge is glaringly evident in your postings. It's not climatologists that study things like magnetic pole reversals - those people are rightly called geologists. So take four demerits and back to school with you!
 
Indeed, the correlation with a lack of education and his belief in the paranormal is glaring.

As mentioned previously in this thread, the atmosphere mitigates a significant amount of radiation. And, as I mentioned myself, there are data to suggest that the Earth's magnetic field doesn't disappear in its entirety and that reversals are on the order of years or decades. The lack of correlating mass extinction events at the periods where where the reversals occur is enough to show that cosmic radiation is a minor factor. The lack of evidence of significant changes in the DNA record that correlate with these events is likewise indicative of little need to worry.

Unless you make your living off of a magnetic compass, I think you'll be okay.

Finally, it is a common fallacy of the undereducated on the topic to make claims that we "are overdue" for a reversal. This is fallacious because there is no discernible pattern in the frequency of polar reversals that can be used for predictive purposes, thus, stating "we are overdue" is an ignorant and ill-informed statement.
 
Don't jump to conclusions, chaps...err..if anything I've firmly dismissed the paranormal.

My only concern is for the oddball sceintists who keep researching it and writing books about it. :)
 
Its not without some support.

APPARENTLY THE POLE SHIFT IS DUE IN 2012

Great...a Pole Shift in combination with GW...at least the Sunday Newspapers will have some news...last weekends were read within an hour before being slung aside.


Gregg Braden is probably the most recognized person who is evaluating and
revealing the scientific phenomena pointing to this shift. He became intrigued
with all this when he was working for Phillips Petroleum in the late 1970s and
noticed that the magnetics of the earth were at their lowest point in 2000 years
and decreasing at a rapid rate.


I'm sure 'why' is Greg is considered "he most recognized person" but its nevertheless underreported compared to the over-reaction to GW which is in danger of being easily ridiculed by daft celebs from Gore to Bono over-reacting (as they do).
 
I've no idea who "Gregg Braden" is, and I've read nearly every recent journal article on the topic. Gary A Glatzmaier is, without a doubt, the most recognized person in science on the topic. Braden is probably a kook in pseudoscience.

There is no demonstrable correlation between global warming and polar wander/polar shift that has been shown. Nor is there a time schedule for polar shifts. Even the most cursory look at the literature (the real literature found in peer-reviewed journals) reveals that these shifts have no discernible pattern when looked at over time with regard to frequency or even duration.

Alarmists who happen to be mystery-mongers and significance-junkies will make spurious claims that "we are over-due," but they consistently fail and refuse to show what data they base this claim upon.
 
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Billy Chyldyshe said:
Its not without some support.

APPARENTLY THE POLE SHIFT IS DUE IN 2012

Great...a Pole Shift in combination with GW...at least the Sunday Newspapers will have some news...last weekends were read within an hour before being slung aside.


Gregg Braden is probably the most recognized person who is evaluating and
revealing the scientific phenomena pointing to this shift. He became intrigued
with all this when he was working for Phillips Petroleum in the late 1970s and
noticed that the magnetics of the earth were at their lowest point in 2000 years
and decreasing at a rapid rate.


I'm sure 'why' is Greg is considered "he most recognized person" but its nevertheless underreported compared to the over-reaction to GW which is in danger of being easily ridiculed by daft celebs from Gore to Bono over-reacting (as they do).
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Greg Braden???? HA! The man is nothing but a charlatan, a fake, a hoax, and likes the money he gets from wooing audiences with his nonsense and selling books.
For those not familiar with this snake-oil salesman/entertainer of the gullible, just take a little look around his website. And I guarantee that if your IQ is higher than that of a turnip you will not visit the site a second time!

http://www.greggbraden.com/lost_mode.php3
 
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