X-Message-Number: 19263 From: Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 05:38:28 EDT Subject: re: Global Warming/cooling? A couple quick points re global warming/cooling: 1. We don't know enough to figure out for certain if the Earth is in a cooling trend or a warming trend. 2. The temperature of the Earth is self-adjusting- the Earth will survive and so will her ecosystem, but the people living on the Earth need technological and energy resources to survive, whether the temperature goes up or down. 3. The most recent guesses that I've heard, are that we were in a cooling trend (witness the Viking settlements in Greenland) and now are in a warming trend, possibly due to greenhouse effect from burning carbon based fuels- but that is not certain. 4. Historical research into core samples in the arctic, antarctic, and ancient lake beds in England seem to indicate a disturbing historical trend: global warming usually is followed by a precipitous ice age- climates going from pine forests to glaciers in 20 years or less- all that warming tending to increase cloud cover until the scale tips suddenly the other way- then slowly rebalancing over time. Yes, apparently you can have global warming and your ice age, too! And almost at the same time! 5. Whatever the future holds, eventually man will have the knowledge and resources to control the global climate. We can already model it crudely in computer models... the rest, as Robert Forward likes to say, is engineering. 6. We know so very little -one example- just recently we've discovered there is oil in the Mars meteorites... and now a new theory is put forth that oil comes from methane trapped in the Earth during its formation... not from dinosaurs or ancient rain forests- and oil resources may be vaster than imagined. And how many times has the weatherman on your local news predicted a 60% chance of rain...while it is pouring rain outside? 7. The point is, probably its best to not screw with the climate TOO much until we figure out what's really happening. Pollution is a bad thing in my book, for many reasons- health, esthetics, environmental impact. Argument fro m authority or passion won't convince me one way or another. Scientists are people-- smart people, who often tend to outsmart themselves. (Not even the very wise can see all ends) I would tend to think that the Earth's climate right now is doing pretty good most places, averaged on the whole. Why not try to mitigate our meddling for a few years, until we have a better grasp on what's going on? And, hopefully, those in suspension won't have to be moved to cooler--- or warmer--- climes before they can be revived. best, Mike Donahue Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19263