Mar
You knew it was coming: Global warming causes 5X deadlier quakes
Okay, we screwed up. This is a 2008 story and we didn’t catch it before publishing. But, we’ll leave it up, to show climate change scientists how to publicly admit when your research is wrong.
With the Haiti and Chile earthquakes recently, you knew we were going to hear from the climate change alarmists that global warming is somehow involved. Not only is it involved, it is involved in a BIG way, so says one scientist.
Here’s ABC CBS News giving space to the crackpot scientist:
New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago.
The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of “global warming” is comprehensively and urgently addressed.
The analysis of more than 386,000 earthquakes between 1973 and 2007 recorded on the US Geological Survey database proved that the global annual energy of earthquakes on Earth began increasing very fast since 1990.
We never knew earthquakes were a global warming “indicator:”
Dr. Chalko said that global seismic activity was increasing faster than any other global warming indicator on Earth and that this increase is extremely alarming.
Why does global warming affect earthquakes?
“NASA measurements from space confirm that Earth as a whole absorbs at least 0.85 Megawatt per square kilometer more energy from the Sun than it is able to radiate back to space. This ‘thermal imbalance’ means that heat generated in the planetary interior cannot escape and that the planetary interior must overheat. Increase in seismic, tectonic and volcanic activities is an unavoidable consequence of the observed thermal imbalance of the planet,” said Dr. Chalko.
First of all, he’s 1) believing that the earth is warming, 2) believes that the extra degree or two has gone miles deep to increase temperatures sufficiently to increase seismic activity. This reminds of of Al Gore recently saying that the earth is millions of degrees hot just a few miles below the surface:
“It definitely is. And it’s a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy — when they think about it at all — in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot…
H/T: IHateTheMedia.com (video removed by youtube)”
I have another hypothesis, which sounds just as logical as Dr. Chalko’s. People have begun consuming more calories since 1973, and have been gaining weight. This correlates exactly with the alleged increase in earthquake severity. And use your common sense–think of all the heavier people walking and running about the earth: it simply must disturb the tectonic plates miles deep.
And to continue playing an alarmist I must add: And even if I’m wrong, consider the consequences of inaction. We must reduce our weight now to save the children. No cost is too high! And besides, it will create new jobs.
How about, ‘thinking about Global warming fries your brain’ or what about Stonehenge is really a message from the Druids in a Runic language saying that ‘the new Messiah will be named Al Gore’.
At least we have evidence to support these theories.
must be all the “whale farts” that are causing the earthquakes!!
I really thought that link was going to take me to the Onion or the Daily Mash. This is simply unbelievable.
“NASA measurements from space confirm that Earth as a whole absorbs at least 0.85 Megawatt per square kilometer more energy from the Sun than it is able to radiate back to space.”
If the good doctor hasn’t figured out what happens to most of this solar energy, and why we’d all be dead if the earth radiated back as much as it received then I think perhaps he needs to check himself into a clinic, or restart school.
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Not that anyone is surprised but this guy is a complete nut job and CBS has already been called out on it.
http://scienceblogs.com/greengabbro/2008/06/someone_punkd_the_cbs_science.php
Your link is to CBS not ABC. It is a two year old AP story. I found the “research paper” here:
http://nujournal.net/EarthquakeEnergyRise.pdf
Does not look to be a mainstream journal. This does show what a poor job mainstream media can do with science reporting.
Climate Audit covered this two years ago. They said “CBSnews.com and other outlets have dropped the story from their Science headlines and have erased it. ” Apparently you stumbled upon a stray copy.
http://climateaudit.org/2008/06/18/earthquakes-and-global-warming/
This is insane and “ihatethemedia”…too too funny!
mel64d too funny too!
Thanks for pointing out our screwup in pointing to a two-year old story. We just added this to the top of the article:
Here’s my hypothesis: It is all that extra CO2 in the atmosphere and ocean. The extra mass is pushing down on the plates causing them to rupture. I’d like my million dollar grant now to study this idea. Oops I’m a chemist not a geologist. Guess I’m sol.
Here’s something from New Scientist last September:
Climate change may trigger earthquakes and volcanoes