The Long Now: Lecture on campus

I attended a lecture on campus sponsored by the Humanities Department.
The author of "The Long Now" spoke. Here are my notes:

I found the lecture interesting, even from the overflow room with only
a video feed of the slides. The main idea was that we should not be as
rushed. Time has been around a long time. He made a clock that is in
the mountains, that measures years by the thousands of years. It will
be interesting to see if he is remembered for that.

He talked about bristlecone pines how they are the oldest living
things on earth, 5000 years old. We don't know why the Jericho Tower
was built, nor Stonehenge. Perhaps they had something to do with time.

Shinto shrines in Japan are rebuilt every 20 years, because of all the
earthquakes and wet climate factors. This obviously did not happen
with Stonehenge. He also talked about the bowling ball shaped thing
that is on old globes. I have always wondered what that was! He showed
pictures of the sun's movement that demonstrated the purpose of the
object.

He showed slides of mosques in turkey that were left standing after
earthquakes because of the care in their building that had been taken.
He showed many pictures of mosques in Indonesia that were left
standing after the tsunami.

He talked about the dangers of global warming. It was interesting to
find out that Methane in sea beds can just come out, making the
atmosphere warmer. If the Ross Ice Shelf separates from Antarctica and
melts, Oceans will rise 16 feet! There is a trend that implicates that
we are moving toward a permanent El Nino effect.

Environmentalist have given Nuclear Fission a bad rap, and it is not
nearly as bad as most people think. They are creating portable
concrete containers to store nuclear waste. These are very useful, as
it delays the decision of where we will put this waste for 1000 years.