Northern Neil

Thanks for a very illuminating and (for me) particularly useful post. Maybe this could be expanded into a featured article? I wonder wether or not the water collected would have fed into some sort of town-wide supply, and wether sluices operated to allow excess water to run off into the sewers in the event of a storm or sustained rain. On some of the larger buildings in Pompeii I noticed that the pitch of some roofs faced outwards as well as inwards. I suppose a building with a single, inward sloped roof could only be built to a certain size before the outer wall became too high, so a roof with a 'standard' pitch would be then required (although I notice some roofs are flat). In Britain and the other Northern provinces there was of course no need to exercise such water conservation methods, and things such as compluvia are not found. However, the Romans, being a traditional lot, still appeared to build houses and other structures with inward facing roofs - most principiae in forts are like this, and also many villas and larger houses in towns. Maybe what started as a water conservation measure became a specific style, and the provincials continued to build in this way so their houses echoed the style of those from the mediterranean? Here is an example to illustrate what I mean... Although there is an absence of an atrium with confluvium/impluvium, the 'Atrium' - in this case, the cross hall of this small principia - is still in evidence, and the inward facing roof of the collonade has become a style feature rather than the neccesity it started out as. The principia itself is (modelled on) that of a small auxilliary fort in Northern England. Plenty of rain, but the builders see it as important to maintain the mediterranean style.

Being pareidolia, isn't it supposed to be fake? I don't think it's supposed to be digitally enhanced. I didnt do it! Honestly! Anyway, what about THIS one?

I believe the US will not follow the same social or political trajectory as Rome. In the third and fourth centuries, the decline of cities led to a commensurate decline in the middle classes. What emerged in the Dominate was a sort of precurser to feudalism, in which there were a few haves, many have nots and very few people in between. The Roman Imperial system accordingly grew more monachistic and religion once more dominated the everyday lives of ordinary people. In modern industrialised societies monarchy and religion inevitably get either thrust into the political background, or dispensed with altogether. This is largely on account of a middle class which collectively has political power linked to wealth. Unless there is some kind of worldwide recession followed by massive economic collapse and population reduction, I do not see the US cities declining, trade diminishing and a monarchical government replacing the Senate or Congress.

I believe that life by nature is an 'All or Nothing' phenomenon. If Mars were at any time able to sustain life, it would now be all over the place. I do not think that the cold conditions on Mars would in themselves have extinguished life. Life has a knack of adapting to, and then slowly changng its environment. the only thing that could really kill it off, in my opinion, is either extremely low or extremely high temperatures. Mars has neither.

What about this remarkable tree? Surely a manifestation of Venus herself!

I have a vegatable which has grown into a rude and amusing shape...

The extinction of the Greenland Vikings is a sad story, told in great depth by the American writer Jared Diamond in his book 'Collapse'. It was an extinction which would have been avoided if they had adopted some of the ways of the neighbouring Inuit. They refused to do this, and steadfastly stook to a european way of life even though the place could not eventually susutain it. Also, the two ships a year which came from Norway were full of fine clothes and luxuries for the nobility, and non essentials like church bells and religious regalia. More imports of weapons, metals and spun wool would have been better used. There is a typo in the newspaper report: The Greenland Eastern Settlement survived until about 1430, not the fourteenth century.

Well, I'm with you on that one - and I admit that my 1969 BSA Spitfire is a toy not an essential, and I get fun out of riding it (The BSA equivalent to the Triumph Bonneville, BTW, so it shifts, despite its antiquity). This I believe I compensate for greenhouse-wise, by cycling at other times and using cooking oil in the old transit. And a whole host of other measures I now do instinctively, which are not related to driving, but in curbing waste in other areas. But, people who think green are not all puritanical and identical in their thinking, Calders. I do not regard the recreational use of a vehicle as an unneccessary journey, if the individual has a love of fast cars, motorbikes, or whatever - it is what they are into, and interests / hobbies are as we know something that makes an individual healthy. It is more the everyday uneccessary driving that millions do, because they cant bear the thought of a walk that is slightly longer than the distance from their armchair to the fridge.

Actually Calders, I agree with you entirely about governments and money, and I also agree with you that the Government is using the global warming issue to levy more taxes. Those things do not in themselves negate the global warming theory though, and far from approaching this issue with religious zeal, I hardly think about it on a day to day basis. Most of my activities which just happen to reduce my carbon footprint, happen to save me cash too. A representative of Friends of the Earth recently stated that if everyone simply kept to speed limits, 1.5 Billion litres of fuel would be saved in Britain every year. That equates roughly to about

Ahem.. things are (or were a few posts back) getting a tad overheated and verging on the personal here. If everyone was running with the crowd, then the Kyoto protocols would have been fulfilled ages ago, and there would not be issues about global warming, waste, overpopulation or pollution. I do however feel drawn to the analogy with Lemmings - unthinking cratures who run toward a precipice utterly unafraid or ignorant of the consequence. Maybe they even perceive well meaning attempts to divert them from their course as some kind of plot to spoil their fun? Who knows. In addition, if this was all about political contol, the world's governments could enforce it tomorrow. Who precisely is trying to control who here? And for what possible reason, if there is no substance in any of the argument? Do some people seriously believe that an intricate international conspiracy has been woven, to slightly disrupt the lives of people in urban societies? Please! What possible end could this achieve? There are no 'religious overtones' to any of the anti global warming measures cited in many posts on this thread. At a personal level, all they can do is save an individual money.But go ahead, carry on using energy inefficient appliances, leaving lights on, driving round the block for your pint of milk. I will in the meantime laugh my way to the bank.

I would have thought that after so many years of republicanism, the US electorate would vote for a pig in a suit as long as it was democrat.

Hello Chris and PM welcome fellow Brits! Hope you enjoy yourself here!

The answer to this - at least, where Britain is concerned - is yes, we ARE encouraging people to operate in our borders who would like nothing better than to overthrow it. That does not apply to all religious followers of a certain faith - a lot of them would like our democratic system to continue, in the full knowledge that they will be tiptoed around, granted immense privileges and allowed to treat our country and institutions with the utmost contempt, because we are now too scared of them to do the slightest thing which might offend them or their religion. Despite the fact that I am criticising a system of thought and nothing else, for some reason I have never worked out I am often silenced as a 'Right winger' or a 'Racist' for criticising this state of affairs. At least in America, the extremely unpleasent Christian Fundamentalist groups - and their critics - are multi - racial, therefore the fatuous slur of 'racist' cannot be applied to one group by another, and debate is more even as a result.

Part of the problem is that people view personal measures against global warming as sacrifices, and people's ears automatically close when the phrases 'sacrifice' or 'Lifestyle Change' are mentioned. In actual fact, common sense economy measures are all that is needed. The fuel for my woodburning stove (newly fitted) is renewable - hence no carbon footprint - but, more importantly, it is freely available in the rubbish skips and supermarket carparks of my town. Predicted saving this winter, based on last winter's gas usage,

Yes, Birthday Greetings from Britannia to Judaea

It is not they who need to - I am quite simply aghast that anyone should think it is the lifestyles of people in the Third World which is the root cause of rainforest and environmental damage!! An average westerner consumes a thousand times more energy and resources than a rural inhabitant of a third world country. It is our demand for cheap consumer goods which fuels the destruction of the environment in general, and forests in particular. But in any case, it is not so much the destruction of rainforests which is causing the problem, but consumption of fossil fuels. Chinese coal burning power stations provide the energy which provides us in the West with our cheap luxuries - but at such a cost. Alluding to recent posts by Asclepius and Caldrail, the religious zeal with which Global Warming denyers fly in the face of all evidence reminds me of those who deny evolution because it casts doubt on their own world view.

A valid point, but most soldiers in the Empire, including those at Vindolanda, were garrison troops. The long marches when on campaign would have been the exception rather than the rule. Although they were probably used to walking several miles a day in the course of their duties, the long march with full equipment probably occurred very rarely. I would think those socks would have come in VERY handy, in midwinter, for the purposes of the six mile patrol to Housesteads and back.

The fact that naturally occuring CO2 outweighs ours, and that some environmental movements have religious overtones, is of no consequence, and should not, in themselves, make us say: 'Oh, well in that case I wont bother trying to put things right.

Cheers, Faustus. As you may have gathered, I am of the 'green' opinion in this debate - but I can see both sides. My view is that even if there is only a 5% chance it may be us causing the whole thing, then we need to change things. Odds of 1 in 20 that our lifestyles may change our world into another Venus are not odds I like to disregard...

The actual topic started out as a cheap joke - see the first post on this thread!

...but also, the earth's capacity for re-absorbing the CO2 is diminished due to human activity, and that must be added, in the equation, to the net CO2 output we make. All the above facts may be true, but that does not mean we shouldnt alter our lifestyles in order to do something about it. In any case, to a degree that decision is being made for us anyway. I have been running my transit off cooking oil and used fish and chip fat for well over a year now due to rising prices, and similarly, two of my friends have junked their gas fires and bought woodburning stoves. In fact, they wonder why they didnt do this earlier, given that the fuel is freely available in the town's skips, and it heats the house more efficiently.

Do immense temperature and climate changes even in interglacials take place over as little as two decades?

Wow -