--- Kevin Tarr wrote: > http://abc.net.au/news/scitech/2002/09/item20020926135029_1.htm > > Good article, but at the end they have to throw in > the bugaboo of global warming. <snip>
This doesn't appear to be a 'bugaboo' (bugbear, hobgoblin, object of obsessive dread) to me; confirmatory documentation is accumulating, and we are not helpless bystanders. http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/ "According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades. There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. Human activities have altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere through the buildup of greenhouse gases � primarily carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. The heat-trapping property of these gases is undisputed although uncertainties exist about exactly how earth�s climate responds to them." NOAA also notes this trend, while acknowledging that there is a great deal we do not yet understand. http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#Q3 I must distrust 'data' from the Consumer Alert group (sponsors of the 'Cooler Heads Prevail' site), since their stated purpose in the 'About Us' section is: "Consumer Alert is dedicated to informing the public about the consumer benefits of competitive enterprise and to promoting sound economic, scientific, and risk data in public policy decisions. Consumer Alert's version of consumerism is advancing competition as the best regulator of business, and individual choice as the best expression of consumer interest." If long-term projections/sustainability guided business, the ongoing debacle re: bankruptcy/extreme short-sightedness in corporate America would not have occurred. IMO, of course. http://eob.gsfc.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=4035 "A NASA study of Greenland�s ice sheet reveals that it is rapidly thinning. In an article published in the July 21 issue of Science, Bill Krabill, project scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center�s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA, reports that the frozen area around Greenland is thinning, in some places, at a rate of more than three feet per year. Any change is important since a smaller ice sheet could result in higher sea levels." The situation at the poles is more ambiguous, with Arctic sea ice decreasing but Antarctic sea ice increasing: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?18674 "While recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period." Climate changes are also affecting the distribution of species at altitude: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/climate/topnews.htm "The overall climate trend corresponds to a shift in bird demographics that has brought 15 new species up from lower elevations. Meanwhile, two lizards found only at higher elevations began to decline in the late 1980s and had vanished by 1996. In the same period, a third species of the small lizard that thrives in drier conditions remained stable. All of this took place against the backdrop of a massive frog population decline that began in 1987 and has since wiped out 40 percent of species present in a series of synchronous crashes that have occurred during peaks of warm and dry conditions." Debbi who finds it ironic that those who insist we must act _now_ because of immediate danger from Iraq, and want to change a long-standing policy of 'no first strike' to 'preemptive strike if we think there is threat' also insist that there is not enough evidence to even begin considering policy change in another arena of potential threat __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
