Posted on 06/20/2004 9:37:22 AM PDT by blam
Flooding may be a side effect of Venus' move
June 20 2004 at 10:33AM
Beijing - The recent spectacular transit of Venus across the face of the sun may lead to disastrous flooding along China's Yellow River, a leading scientist warned in the local media on Sunday.
While millions were marvelling at the celestial show earlier this month, Geng Guoqing, an expert on natural calamities, was more worried about the consequences for China's second-longest river, the Xinhua news agency reported.
He compared historical records reaching 2 187 years back and found a clear correllation between Venus transits and serious floods along the river's middle and lower reaches, according to the agency.
The reason could be that Venus blocks part of the sun's radiation that should have been transmitted to Earth, said Guo, a researcher at the Special Committee on Natural Calamities Forecasting under the China Geophysics Society.
This causes climatic disturbances across the globe, he argued.
As the flood season approaches, officials along banks of the 5 464km Yellow River are not taking any chances.
Four silt-stirring vessels started a 24-day operation on Saturday morning to remove tons of silt from the river, in one of many efforts to prevent flood waters rising, Xinhua said in a separate report.
Torrential rains and flooding were responsible for nearly 2 000 deaths in China in the first nine months of last year. - Sapa-AFP
Strikes me as pure unadulterated idiocy.
Old Ben is certainly no scientist, but it just doesn't seem possible that the position of Venus would make any difference to our weather.
OTOH, aren't the Commies looking for an event to use as an excuse to hit Taiwan? Is the muttering about the Three Rivers Gorge a prelude to a planned failure of the dam?
Ok, ok, I promise I will go out and buy some tinfoil so that Venusian radiation cannot fog my thinking.
I'd like to see them try that in CA.
There are people who study planet configuration and movements to predict commodity prices - and they are dead serious.
I don't make fun of them - what if there is something to it?
However ridiculous it sounds to me...
Venus was the basis of many religions, and it still is. Timing is certainly odd for this news release.
Such language! There are children reading these pages and....Huh? ..Oh! Silt stirring....never mind.
As you said, correlation doesn't equal causation.
Not to worry. The same Chinese astrologists can turn dirt into gold, thereby saving the economy...
Since the sun is 104 times larger than Venus, I seriously doubt that its output of radiation can be significantly influenced by Venus. I think this guy should go back to the drawing boards.
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Anybody remember the book the Jupiter Effect?
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I was once in a lecture hall where the physics professor was asked by a student in the top row what he thought of that book. His reply was:
"Young man, *I* have more of a gravitational influence on you than does Jupiter."
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Anybody remember the book the Jupiter Effect?
>
I was once in a lecture hall where the physics professor was asked by a student in the top row what he thought of that book. His reply was:
"Young man, *I* have more of a gravitational influence on you than does Jupiter."
The Chinese scientist did not try to establish cause and effect, he only pointed to a coincidence of events supported by historical evidence.
It's not astrology anyway. Astrologers haven't looked at the sky for about 4000 years.
It seems that Venus was nowhere near the transit point during these events.
There would have been far more of a chance that a flood control engineer along the Yellow River neglected to engage a valve while watching the transit, had any such flood occurred...
I have read that most (or all) planetary orbits are harmonically related to the orbital motion of Jupiter, the only other solar system object to exercise such direct control over distant objects. Of course, a common orbital harmonic relationship to a single object means that all of the other planets bear a relationship to each other, as well. They are not immune to other influences, but the major source of their orbital synchronicity is likely to be Jupiter. However, Pluto was discovered due to its small perturbation of the orbit of Neptune, and of course each planet with moons controls the orbit of its own satellites.
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