OT OT global warning rant:
Disclosure: when I was about half my present age, I was arrested at sit-ins at nuclear plants, and I haven't changed my opinions much, on environmental issues. I'm not a disinterested observer. FWIW:
At the last global conference on this issue, the governments of almost every country in the world, accepted as fact, that global warming: 1) is real, 2)is man-made, and 3) if present trends aren't changed, will cause huge negative impacts for humans and the entire biosphere. The American delegation stood almost alone in rejecting these ideas. The reason, I think, is that once you accept these ideas, the next step is to realise that there is a vast amount of existing infrastructure and technology that must be abandoned and/or radically altered, and this is going to cost a lot of money. So it's easier to pretend the problem doesn't exist, and let future generations pay the cost. That's our present policy.
My country is very good at crisis-management, and very bad at longterm planning. For example, we're very good at organizing a half-million-strong army to defend the oil fields in our client states in 1990, but we've failed to carry through any program for energy independance, even though the need for one has been clear for 40 years.
RE: global warming:
The physical properties of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gasses) are well known. CO2 is transparent to sunlight (lets solar energy pass to the earth's surface). But, CO2 is opaque (compared to the other atmospheric gasses) to the radiation in the other direction (infrared, from the earth's surface into space). So, increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase the retention of heat at the earth's surface. This is fact.
Further: it is possible to find atmospheric samples from the past, going back thousands of years. Air bubbles trapped in ancient ice in the Antarctic ice cap, for instance. This shows that CO2 levels stayed in a narrow range, as far back as data is obtainable, and then (in the last 200 years), suddenly increased. That increase is accelerating. This is fact.
Further, there has been dramatic recent evidence that the biospere is changing very quickly. Things like open water at the North Pole last winter, something never before seen.
Is this all just coincidence? Did rapidly rising CO2 levels just happen to coincide with glaciers retreating? You can raise the level of proof required, till it's impossible to prove anything.
BTW, volcanic eruptions release large amounts of fine particulate matter (= soot) into the atmosphere, which takes years to settle out. This blocks incoming solar radiation, decreasing the amount of heat reaching the earth's surface. That is how volcanic eruptions (and large meteor strikes, like the one that killed the dinosaurs) temporarily cool the earth. The main gas emitted by volcanoes is methane, not CO2.
Change in the biosphere happens in a "punctuated equilibrium" pattern. That is, there are long periods of static equilibrium, with small variations around stable average conditions. Then, in a very brief period, you see huge, drastic changes. Sea levels rising or falling hundreds of feet. Glaciers covering or uncovering entire continents. These periods of very rapid change, correspond to huge die-offs in existing species (and then a rapid evolution and proliferation of the survivors, in the next equilibrium period). The evidence is overwhelming, that we are in the midst of one of those periods, now. And that we caused it.
Maybe the world was going to warm up anyway. If so, then we have made things worse, by adding greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. I think it'd be a bad thing (whether "natural" or not) if sea levels were 50 feet higher than today (drowning all the coastal cities in the world). Or if changes in rainfall patterns drastically reduce global grain production. Or if all the large mammals on the planet go extinct except in zoos, because of sudden drastic changes in their habitats. That's where we're headed, if we keep pretending there isn't a problem. Or the fall-back position, which is: there is a problem, but we didn't cause it. Or the second fall-back position, which is: there is a problem, we caused it, but it's too expensive to fix. |
