Global warming.

[john]

I don't know that the issue is are humans "causing" global warming so much as are we making it "worse."

I doubt that there is much doubt that we are adding to it. The thing is that it is not only SUVs that add to the problem but 5 billion people in Asia/Africa/South America with cooking fires going every day, accelerating de-forestation, and slash and burn agricultural practices. Five billion people doing anything will have an impact.

Minimalist -

Thanks for the wise mind. Global climatic cycles are still poorly understood. However, to dismiss the effects of 5 billion people on earth, plus burning how many million tons of oil in its various distillations, plus how many million tons of coal, plus how many million tons of wood................. is simply denial of the obvious.

Now, as to herbivores, I have not read any evidence of a geometrical increase in herbivore populations which is producing a life-threatening methane or co2 cloud.

So, putting the political crap aside,

do we have any previous archaeological evidence of similar changes and responses with respect to world climate?


john


ps

Of course, if you really want to solve the problem, just vote Dubya into a third term.

j


pps

(Its all about the al-climatica terrists). This is very secret: dont tell a soul.

[Minimalist]

There are lots of good reasons for decreasing our reliance on oil that have nothing to do with global warming, though.

[FreeThinker]

We are now living through one of the great epochs in the history of life on earth. Not since the advent of cyanobacteria 3.8 billion years ago changed the primordial atmosphere to its current composition has a life form existed that has succeeded in significantly altering the earth's atmospheric chemistry. Already the species die off is approaching the levels suffered during the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago, and with the human population growing and polluting unchecked we are just getting started.

Next up on the world stage: Artificial Intelligence
see: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... an+v2.0%22 (six parts but worth it)
see also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A9pGhwQbS0

Unrelated but check it out - Eisenhower on the Military Industrial Complex
see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBB ... re=related

Have a nice day.

[Minimalist]

Thanks, FT.

Eisenhower was one of the last great Republicans.

[War Arrow]

Get out of London WA and start to live stress free!

That's definitely my plan, although at present I'm not exactly sure what the first step might be. Moving to high ground (see - global warming, still on topic) and some place where I never again have to encounter a person who refers to a building as "a property" or watch a new dad type with little round glasses whine 'put it back, Jacob, it's got genetically modified nuts in it' to his offspring in a supermarket... is about so far as I've worked out at present.

I think I'm turning into P. J. O'Rourke.

Interesting edition of Coast on TV last night. The Orkney islands where there's an experimental wave power scheme going on. Irrespective of causes (or not) of global warming, I'd sure like to see a lot more development of this kind of thing. It makes a lot of sense from the perspective of pollution and (providing it can be done cheaply on a global scale) granting a degree of economic independance where one country is reliant upon another for supplies of fuel and/or energy.
The Orkney project was supplying power to 500 homes, which is pretty pathetic and strikes me as tokenism, but in the long term I don't think we have a lot of choice in whether or not we decide to develop this sort of thing into something that will work on a larger scale.

[Digit]

Locally WA there is a power station to be run on timber about to to come on line. Pollution in equals pollution out!
And houses around here equate to a garage in price in London, and there's a lot of high ground in Wales!

[kbs2244]

That is one of the great things about the free economy that the nay sayers always forget..
When something becomes scarce, and thus expensive, an alterative always appears.
Oftentimes, more then one. Then it starts all over again, which technology will rise to the top?
The way the current system is set up, we need heat to make steam, which turns turbines to make electricity. How many of us doubt that when we plug something into the wall the energy will be there?
So, the question becomes, how do we make the heat?
Some how, I think the long term thinkers, earning multi millions on the payroll of the energy companies, will figure it out.
After all, they, like the rest of us, are “Just doing my job.”

[War Arrow]

Locally WA there is a power station to be run on timber about to to come on line. Pollution in equals pollution out!
And houses around here equate to a garage in price in London, and there's a lot of high ground in Wales!

I almost talked my girlfriend into moving to Machynlleth. There's a big alternative energy center there which she went crazy about (commendable place - though I personally was less blown away, she can sometimes be a bit hook-line-and-sinker when it comes to green/ecological matters) I think the main difference of opinion is that she didn't like the idea of being so isolated from the rest of the country (by which I think she means Tate Modern and places like that) whereas I relish the prospect of being a long way away from Tate Modern (for one example). Still, we'll see.

[Digit]

There's plenty of lonely females around WA.

[kbs2244]

I think this is going to be the biggest effect we experience from the current warming spell.

The North West Passage is going to make the Bering Strait as important as the Hormuz Strait or the Gulf of Aden. More inportant then the Panama Canal. (Which is why the Chinese are helping Panama enlarge the Canal.)
It is just a whole lot shorter trip from Japan to Europe through the Arctic Ocean than through the Panama Canal.

Of course, depending on which way you go around Greenland, you have to worry about Russian or Canadian Territorial waters.

This is from the Canadian point of view.

http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/northwest-passage.htm

I expect a lot of posturing and such, maybe some toll collecting, but in the end the money will prevail.

The toll collecting may have a president. I believe every time an airline fly’s over Cuba on it’s way from the U S to South America, they have to pay Cuba for the use of their air traffic controllers. This in spite of all they ever hear is "Maintain current heading and altitude."

[War Arrow]

Okay, firstly sorry for being two years behind what some of you have been saying all along (I think)...
Been reading a Fred Hoyle book from 1953 wherein he talks about not only the sun chucking out more heat as its hydrogen is converted to helium (leading paradoxically to an ice age followed by a much warmer period possibly equating to what we're getting now) but also (and this is news to me) this idea that stars such as the sun tend to "hoover" a tunnel through the immense clouds of interstellar gases in our part of the milky way - and depending on how hydrogen rich is the cloud we're passing through at the time, this too tends to contribute to the sun's warming and cooling. I understand Fred Hoyle has a bit of a tarnished reputation in some respects (particularly with regard to the big bang v. steady state versions of the universe - though the guy who gave me this book swears by the latter) but is this kind of what some of you have been talking about?

[Digit]

Fred Hoyle was probably wrong about the steady state WA but such was the weight of his arguments that proving him wrong resulted in some major advances.
He also wrote good science fiction.

[War Arrow]

Fred Hoyle was probably wrong about the steady state WA but such was the weight of his arguments that proving him wrong resulted in some major advances.
He also wrote good science fiction.

I know. I read one as a kid, called Neutron Star I think. I've a lot of respect for the guy, wrong on steady state or otherwise - and even regarding that, I don't feel personally qualified to dismiss steady state myself. Without wishing to brand myself as a nutter, my eccentric pal Andy puts forth a pretty good pro-steady state argument. I'm keeping an open mind until I understand what any of it's about.

[Digit]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7132220.stm

So much for the Polar Bear going extinct!

[Ishtar]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7132220.stm

So much for the Polar Bear going extinct!

So perhaps the polar bears could give us some advice on how to survive the next oncoming interglacial period?