DID YOU KNOW that the earth is
starting to spin more slowly, and that sailboats might be at least partly to blame?
I was first made aware of this fact by
a letter from a reader, who said:
I read in the paper that scientists
are worried because the earth's spinning rate is slowing down. Days and nights
are getting longer. But that's not the major concern. The big problem is that
the earth is spinning like a top, and as it slows down it will start to
wobble. The poles will tilt nearer the
sun in their arcs, and all the ice will melt.
The seas will rise and become
diluted with fresh water. Lots of land
will be inundated and no longer habitable for humans. Lots of marine plant life
and mammals will die out completely. In short, it will be a disaster.
Now it occurs to me as I lie here
staring at the ceiling that is it perfectly normal that the earth's spinning
should slow down as it gradually loses the energy that started it spinning in
the first place. But, as usual, Nature has been compensating. Gravity has been
moving the high spots of the earth down to the low spots of the earth ever
since the Big Bang. So the radius of the
earth from mountain tops on one side to mountain tops on the other side has
been shrinking. Thus, as a ballerina
spins faster when she pulls her arms to her sides, the earth has gradually
tried to spin faster to make up for the slowing down caused by waning
energy. And so the rate of spinning has remained more or
less equal in all the earth's life.
But now, quite suddenly in cosmic
terms, the earth is slowing. And I
believe I know why. Let me explain. As you know, the earth spins from east to
west. As it spins, the surface of the earth encounters resistance from the
atmosphere. Once again, over the eons,
this resistance has been lessened by gravity's habit of smoothing out mountain
tops and generally sanding things down nice and smooth.
But in recent years this resistance
has increased because of windmills and yachts.
Never before in the history of the
earth have there been so many manmade things sticking up from the surface of
the earth, all of them designed deliberately to encounter the atmosphere with
force. Never before have so many wind
farms and private sailboats offered resistance to the atmosphere. The surface of the earth is now fatally
roughened by these foreign protrusions
which, in extracting energy from the
atmospheric winds, also serve to retard the earth in its spinning.
If we are to save our dear earth for
future generations, it is obvious that both windmills and sailboats must be
banned.
Oh yes, I can imagine the chorus of
protests from rich yachtsmen who don't give a damn for the rest of us as long
as they can pursue their sybaritic pastimes without restriction, but we are
talking survival here. I have already
contacted my senator regarding having yachting made illegal in my state and I
expect other states to follow suit once my discovery is made general knowledge.
The future of the human race depends on it.
Yours in great apprehension etc.
Lifer,
Washington Sate penitentiary.
Today's
Thought
The
greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble.
They can never be solved but only outgrown.
— Carl Jung.
Tailpiece
"My neighbor kept banging on my
door at 2:30 this morning, can you believe that?"
"Wow, 2:30 a.m.?"
"Yeah, luckily for him I was
still up playing my bagpipes."
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for another Mainly about Boats column.)
5 comments:
earth spins from west to east. This causes the sun to appear to move from east to west
You are doing all of your calculations in an expanding universe. You need to start quivering with dread when the universe stops and then starts contracting. That'll be all of the laws of physics out the window. got a few billion years yet, just like your issues
Thank you so much John Vigor for this information. Today I burnt my boat to the waterline and went out and bought some very sharp saws. With a saw in each hand I will begin a world wide crusade to cut down the masts of every yacht on the planet - so many masts, so little time before non spinning planet time, and all I have to say to nay sayers is "You will have to prise my saws from my cold dead hands." God bless a sail free planet ----- "Yeah Right" as the NZ Tui Beer Advertisements say. (If you don't understand Tuis ads - Google it).
Hey Alden, Tui Beer has the right ideas about men. And they're true. Just look at the YouTube piece about the girls who make Tui beer. It's right there in black and white. Or color. I forget now.
Cheers,
John V.
It seems that here the US Navy and Air Force should do something about this, it's not enought to stop that disastrous sailing in US states; and how useful it's to complain to e.g. Arizona senators etc - I seem to remember there is rather little sailors in that state and probably in other similar places.
Also this mast removal by US forces would give them something to do while waiting for the next war; and exercise for example to F-35's would be very useful, to fly low and snap masts off with their wings - no need to use expensive missiles and guns, clear savings and good practice for pilots.
The solution's simple. Passenger aircraft in the world need to be re-routed so that all air travel must henceforth take place via circumnavigations in an Easterly direction. The combined effect of their engine thrust travelling in a Westerly direction will therefore increase the speed of rotation of the planet. Once this has been returned to an acceptable level normal programming can resume. Care will need to be taken not to over compensate lest the globe begins to spin too fast and we (and our vessels) are forcibly ejected due to centrifugal forces and become spaceships. Nanoo Nanoo.
Post a Comment