Global Warming

[Martina]

Hard to deny after this week. I heard on the radio today that most people in the U.S. think it's real, but that it's low on their list of priorities. That's why we haven't heard much about it during the election.

Sandy may have changed that. We'll see.

[Gráinne]

I am a geologist by major. My thoughts:

"Global warming" can either mean the natural warming of the planet or the hypothesis that man is destroying the atmosphere and warming the planet by our own actions.

Earth has always had climate change, either cooler or warmer, most obviously in the Ice Ages. The Mesozoic era, when the dinosaurs dominated, was actually warmer than we are now.

Skipping way ahead to the early Middle Ages, before 1300, they too were a warm period which was historically marked by the first few Crusades, and great journeys and a general leap forward for civilizations. But starting about 1300 and certainly by 1340, we entered what is called the "Little Ice Age". The LIA was much cooler and damper. The poor climate and failed crops left Europe's population a sitting duck for the Black Plague, smallpox, syphillis, and you name it.

As an aside, the ravages on society due to these epidemics led to great social change as feudalism collapsed and a new middle class emerged. The Roman Catholic church, though very powerful, found competition in the rise of Protestantism due in part to people's disillusionment with a church powerless against disease. The roots of later revolution in France, the Holy Roman Empire, and ultimately Russia were sewn by governments failing to respond to people in crisis. Obviously, all of these effects had other causes but the climate factor is interesting.

The LIA lasted until about 1850, and we've been warming ever since. Realize that the Industrial Revolution, which got going about the same time, only affected a small part of the planet as a whole-western Europe and northeast America. Even today, we actually have more wilderness land in America than we did 60 years ago. Car and industrial emissions are much more tightly regulated than in the 1950's and 60's.

So, in short, we are warming but it's my belief that man is not the great influence on it. Call me cynical, but it's worth looking into just what the "scientists" are saying, and following the (big) money involved. I'm all for recycling and using our resources responsibly, of course, but climate change in itself is natural and our main responsibility is not to build in hazardous areas (easier said than done).

[girl_dee]

Thank for that info!

i feel it's evolution. Like what guihong just posted, the world is evercharging.

i don't understand why people expect the Earth's climate to stop changing.

[kittygrrl]

Originally Posted by guihong

I am a geologist by major. My thoughts:

"Global warming" can either mean the natural warming of the planet or the hypothesis that man is destroying the atmosphere and warming the planet by our own actions.

Earth has always had climate change, either cooler or warmer, most obviously in the Ice Ages. The Mesozoic era, when the dinosaurs dominated, was actually warmer than we are now.

Skipping way ahead to the early Middle Ages, before 1300, they too were a warm period which was historically marked by the first few Crusades, and great journeys and a general leap forward for civilizations. But starting about 1300 and certainly by 1340, we entered what is called the "Little Ice Age". The LIA was much cooler and damper. The poor climate and failed crops left Europe's population a sitting duck for the Black Plague, smallpox, syphillis, and you name it.

As an aside, the ravages on society due to these epidemics led to great social change as feudalism collapsed and a new middle class emerged. The Roman Catholic church, though very powerful, found competition in the rise of Protestantism due in part to people's disillusionment with a church powerless against disease. The roots of later revolution in France, the Holy Roman Empire, and ultimately Russia were sewn by governments failing to respond to people in crisis. Obviously, all of these effects had other causes but the climate factor is interesting.

The LIA lasted until about 1850, and we've been warming ever since. Realize that the Industrial Revolution, which got going about the same time, only affected a small part of the planet as a whole-western Europe and northeast America. Even today, we actually have more wilderness land in America than we did 60 years ago. Car and industrial emissions are much more tightly regulated than in the 1950's and 60's.

So, in short, we are warming but it's my belief that man is not the great influence on it. Call me cynical, but it's worth looking into just what the "scientists" are saying, and following the (big) money involved. I'm all for recycling and using our resources responsibly, of course, but climate change in itself is natural and our main responsibility is not to build in hazardous areas (easier said than done).

I have to confess I am a little confused on this subject and read many conflicting ideas about if this new warming is more man made then just part of a cycle. I appreciate your expert opinion and leaning towards it being more of a natural cycle perhaps accelerated by our over use of fossil fuels. The only thing that bothers me is that some ice ages, including the little one seems to have been caused by a major volcano eruption?? Please correct me if I am wrong as I'm strictly going on my memory..btw, what a wonderful study!

[Glenn]

Originally Posted by kittygrrl

The only thing that bothers me is that some ice ages, including the little one seems to have been caused by a major volcano eruption?? Please correct me if I am wrong as I'm strictly going on my memory..btw, what a wonderful study!

Vostok Ice Core Data, Antartica- Well, yes there could be another ice age coming again soon considering the last ice age was only 10,000 years ago, and the Earth is 4 billion years old. Back in the day, Folks use to sacrifice a virgin to volcano to stop it from erupting. Method must work since some of us are still living here and prospering. I suggest we throw Mitt Romney into a volcano tomorrow. It will appease the gods of fear-mongering, and the gods of bull-shi*t, and I'm sure we'll be just fine

[kittygrrl]

Originally Posted by Glenn

Vostok Ice Core Data, Antartica- Well, yes there could be another ice age coming again soon considering the last ice age was only 10,000 years ago, and the Earth is 4 billion years old. Back in the day, Folks use to sacrifice a virgin to volcano to stop it from erupting. Method must work since some of us are still living here and prospering. I suggest we throw Mitt Romney into a volcano tomorrow. It will appease the gods of fear-mongering, and the gods of bull-shi*t, and I'm sure we'll be just fine

i think the volcano would spit him right back out too full of ....!

[aishah]

i don't know enough about global warming to know. i've found the info on this thread really interesting because most people i know accept global warming and human involvement in it as fact, so it was really cool to hear a different perspective. it definitely made me stop and think.

i do think corporations are doing a lot of fucked up shit to the environment. i don't know if that's causing global warming, but it's causing enough other problems to scare me.

i'm curious for folks who know more about this than i do - what do you think about the theory that we're going through a great extinction that's driven partly by human actions? i heard this (and the idea that we might have another huge volcanic eruption sometime soon) only recently.

[Rockinonahigh]

I honestly beleave the earth has gone thrue many cyckes of cooling then warming in varying degrees and will contenue to do so.I'm not a scientis but I do read lots of earth/ cutural history and it says thay had happen a lot of times,onething for shure we best be mindful of how our ancestors got thrue the weather changes so we will be able to do the same by inproveing on the how and why they did as well as they did.the satistics of survival of the fitist will be inproved on but useing th technology we have at hand.

[kittygrrl]

Permafrost in Alaska is thawing..it contains mega amounts of carbon which can form into methane..not good

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by guihong

I am a geologist by major. My thoughts:

"Global warming" can either mean the natural warming of the planet or the hypothesis that man is destroying the atmosphere and warming the planet by our own actions.

Earth has always had climate change, either cooler or warmer, most obviously in the Ice Ages. The Mesozoic era, when the dinosaurs dominated, was actually warmer than we are now.

The only problem I have with this is that yes, the Mesozoic was warmer but the species that were alive then but are no longer alive now were adapted to *that* climate. When the climate changed drastically and rapidly, most likely due to an asteroid strike, whole phyla were wiped out because they didn't have time to adapt. As you are aware, a change in climate happening over, say, 200K, 300K, 500K, years is one thing (that's a lot of generations for some animals) is one thing. That same change happening over a period of 100 or 200 or 300 years is not a lot of time at all. Sure, that's a lot of *mouse* generations but it's only 15 generations--at most--for, say, elephants or whales or, for that matter, us.

My concern isn't with the rise in temperature in absolute terms--provided we don't see serious spikes outside of the normal range that shouldn't be a problem. Rather, my concern is with the combination of the rapidity of change and the degree of change. Six or seven degrees C within a century is a big shift and one that I'm not sure how many species that live in temperate or arctic climes could handle that sort of shift long term.

I know that species extinction happens. I know that *mass* species extinction happens. But once we become aware that *we* are causing mass extinctions, I think both prudence and ethics dictate that we at least consider doing something to ameliorate the situation. We can't stop big rocks from hitting the planet (well, maybe we could) but we can stop ourselves from heating the planet so much that we get into a really bad feedback loop and then, a few thousand years from now, some intelligent species, following a faint radio broadcast that could *only* have come from an intelligent species, parks its ship in low-earth orbit and finds that Sol has two very hot, rocky planets with runaway greenhouse effects instead of the one it currently has.

Cheers
Aj