combjelly,
Welcome to the thread. Good post.
The point is that relatively small changes in a chaotic system can trigger much larger changes as the system find a new strange attractor. We may have already provided enough of a shift in the balance. On the upside (I guess), it is something that would (and has) happened sooner or later, a slight increase in volcanic action can release more CO2 and sulfur oxides than humans have to date and trigger these changes anyway...
I think the earth is a stable system, rather than an unstable one. There are number of feedback mechanisms that can work on bringing the system back to balance. If the earth was as fragile as some people assume, there would have been some stimulation over the million of years that would trigger the the event that would destroy all life on the Earth.
There have been swings from ice ages to warm climates, and as far as the average is concerned, I believe we are on the warm side of the average now, and the next major change will be to another ice age.
If the temperature cycles follow the sine wave, and we are reaching the peak, thinking long term means thinking about what will happen when the temperature will reach the average, and even thinking how the humanity will make it through the coldest peak.
The thinking about global warming is a short term thinking: What will happen to my beach property? How come there is not enough snow in the ski-resort where I bought my condo?
The whole assumption that we can repeal these cycles and freeze the earth forever in the state as it was during my childhood for the sake of nostalgia - the whole idea is laughable, if you think about it.
One think to consider is this. Suppose it was in power of people to freeze the earth in time to the climate that we had, say 25 years ago (I picked 25 years ago because we all "know" that everything was fine back than and the sky is falling now).
Anyway, suppose we could impose our will on the Earth, and repeal the dynamic system that developed over million of years, with a constant cycle of ice ages / warm weather, suppose we managed to break the cycle.
Just a WAG, what do you think is more dangerous, letting the Earth run it's course, or breaking the climatic cycles?
I am not presumptuous to claim to know what's best for the Earth, but to be cautious in my opinion is to let the nature do it's own thing.
Joe |
