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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: frankw1900 who wrote (85191)	11/9/2004 9:28:13 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 793885

The most recent National Geographic has a map of the earth at night in color, that shows various light and heat sources at night. Worth looking at. Some of the biggest pollution sources are Chinese factories, which have no pollution control and are not covered by Kyoto. (That's not on this map, it's on NASA websites showing smoke and air pollution during the daytime.) Also, natural gas burn off in places like Nigeria. 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas are burned off every year worldwide as a byproduct of extraction, and in refineries. That's American billions, 1 with 9 zeros behind. Not to mention slash-and-burn agriculture in Africa, South America, and Asia. But I have read predictions that the human population will top out and start declining in about 50 years. Hard to imagine, but we already see it in Europe, Japan, and even in China, where the "one child only" laws are starting to have an effect.

To: frankw1900 who wrote (85191)	11/9/2004 9:31:09 PM
From: Selectric II	Respond to of 793885

The earth has been getting warmer ever since the last ice age, which probably was caused by a catastrophic event, e.g. an asteroid that kicked up enough dust to substantially cloud the earth and shield it from the sun, cooling it, also causing all sorts of plant matter to die from lack of sunlight and thereby starving all sorts of animal life, too. At the same time, polar icecaps formed and grew. As the sky cleared, the earth started warming -- over tens of thousands of years -- and the huge polar icecaps that formed during the ice age started melting. We live in what amounts to a pinpoint in time during the melting phase. It will take a LOT longer. But another asteroid could hit and start the process all over again. If so, I hope you've paid your heating bill.