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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!

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To: Grainne who wrote (25581)	10/15/1998 12:19:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) of 108807

>any rational person would at least look at this from a purely scientific angle < The trouble is that from a detached, disinterested scientific angle we need another fifty years to decide the issue. There is warming going on, but the degree and rate of warming is small compared to the natural "noise" of the thermal record. The idea that some or much of this warming is anthropogenic is "plausible" but calling it "probable" is unwarranted. That said, you know me to be a cautious sort. I would favor an approach which states that some of our global warming may indeed have to do with man tweaking the greenhouse gas budget. If so - there are things we can do which have a cost/return structure. The cheapest and most effective is a ban on and aggressive replacement of halofluorocarbons. Next up are more exotic but important gases like nitrous oxide and tetrafluoromethane. These are not ozone risks, but they have a very high greenhouse index for their quantities. The tough nut will be carbon dioxide. Here is where science steps aside and the politics of industry vs. environment take over. The envirovigilantes would be happy if our whole heavy industry complex just goes away one day and spinning&weaving once again become major professions. The technowarriors (inimitably represented by the late Father Terrence) believe that in the Darwinian arena of unfettered industrial capitalism, we will invent our way out of crisis. (Probabbly by toe-tagging the last tree.) I think both sides are tarred by the brush of the fanatic - a mindset which would have us all suffer individually for the collective good. And you know how I feel about taht. I am awed by mankind's penchant for apocalyptic thought. This lady on NPR was yakking the other day about the coming Y2K crisis and how wouldn't it be nice if it were 1900 all over again with folks saying "hello" to each other while fetching water. <Crank alert> Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp harvested their share of astronomical apocalyptics (remember the Black Nike Stiffs?). Now with the Population Bomb fizzling and the Silent Spring averted, we have Global Warming as our next proof positive that man is a smear on the natural canvas. Well, I don't buy it. I won't belittle the plausibility of global warming. i will not sweep it under the rug. But I will dump the cold water of logic on those who feel it's a catastrophe in action. What I would like to see is a reduction in the way we use fossil carbon - but with an eye toward cost and benefit. A steady improvement in internal combustion driven vehicles is a very big step, and it's here now. (I discount electrics - because where is the power coming from? Oil or coal. Much is lost in transmission and storage. Efficiencies for a gas Honda and a battery Honda are about the same, and the electric Honda is a whole lot less practical. Jmho.)(I'll recant if we go nuclear in a big way. i think nukes are a much better choice than our Sierra Clubs want us to think.) Some way of convincing China and Africa to ease up on coal-fired power plants would be a nice next step. But how to provide the incentive is beyond me. We are individually and collectively reminded to consider this issue in balance - not from the parapets of fanaticism. (Disclaimer. I did not yet read the limited ballistic exchange which follows the referenced post #25581.)

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