[Phys-L] forwarded: mineralogist lecture / global climate change

[Bernard Cleyet <bernard@cleyet.org>]

I don’t think this was forwarded:

I read, enjoyably, the blogged write-up.  (first link below)

On 2013, Feb 19, , at 09:47, kirby urner <kirby.urner@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Dr. Robert Hazen, author of The Story of Earth, lectured in Portland,
> Oregon recently.
>
> He expressed certainty that humans were provably orders of magnitude
> higher in contributing to net CO2 in Earth's atmosphere next to any
> runner-up secondary cause.  It's "uber anthropogenic" I think he'd
> agree with that term.
>
> He's a well recognized mineralogist with an actual mineral named after
> him (Hazenite), so I think I'll choose to go with his assessment on
> the matter, until further notice.
>
> Here's my blogged write-up of his talk:
>
> http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2013/02/evolving-minerals.html
>
> The lecture on bacterial evolution last week was also interesting and
> the content dove-tailed to some degree:
>
> http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2013/02/bacteria-aint-dumb.html
>
> The latter writeup touches on a recent topic on this list as well:
> the appropriateness / inappropriateness of anthropomorphic language.
> "Shall we think of bacteria as 'sentient'?  Discuss." might have been
> a subtitle of the lecture.
>
> Dr. Hazen's talk was not specifically about global warming at all.
> That came up during Q&A.  He was more there to talk about how the
> permutations you'll find in the crystal kingdom are tied to an
> evolutionary scenario much as the biologicals are and indeed the
> biosphere and geosphere co-evolve.
>
> Kirby

bc