well yanno.... I'm only basing my opion on news stories like this. http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/330302.html
And *I'm* accused of being a know-nothing. ::giggles:: Gel is right. Just keep on buying On 10/24/07, Gruss Gott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Dana wrote: > > It's here, folks. The > > question is how we can mitigate it, > > > > That's where you lose Robert and many like him because you don't KNOW > that. You're speculating based on anecdotal evidence of a system that > nobody understands. > > The problem is that they are skeptical beyond reason. Let's ask a > professional, Dr. Michael Shermer, Executive Director of the Skeptics > Society who flipped in June of 2006: > > "Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism > was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to > activism." > > > http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=000B557A-71ED-146C-ADB783414B7F0000 > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > > May 22, 2006 > > The Flipping Point > > How the evidence for anthropogenic global warming has converged to > cause this environmental skeptic to make a cognitive flip > > By Michael Shermer > > In 2001 Cambridge University Press published Bjorn Lomborg's book The > Skeptical Environmentalist, which I thought was a perfect debate topic > for the Skeptics Society public lecture series at the California > Institute of Technology. The problem was that all the top > environmental organizations refused to participate. "There is no > debate," one spokesperson told me. "We don't want to dignify that > book," another said. One leading environmentalist warned me that my > reputation would be irreparably harmed if I went through with it. So > of course I did. > > My experience is symptomatic of deep problems that have long plagued > the environmental movement. Activists who vandalize Hummer dealerships > and destroy logging equipment are criminal ecoterrorists. > Environmental groups who cry doom and gloom to keep donations flowing > only hurt their credibility. As an undergraduate in the 1970s, I > learned (and believed) that by the 1990s overpopulation would lead to > worldwide starvation and the exhaustion of key minerals, metals and > oil, predictions that failed utterly. Politics polluted the science > and made me an environmental skeptic. > > Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from > numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject > of anthropogenic global warming. My attention was piqued on February 8 > when 86 leading evangelical Christians--the last cohort I expected to > get on the environmental bandwagon--issued the Evangelical Climate > Initiative calling for "national legislation requiring sufficient > economy-wide reductions" in carbon emissions. > > Then I attended the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference > in Monterey, Calif., where former vice president Al Gore delivered the > single finest summation of the evidence for global warming I have ever > heard, based on the recent documentary film about his work in this > area, An Inconvenient Truth. The striking before-and-after photographs > showing the disappearance of glaciers around the world shocked me out > of my doubting stance. > > Reducing our CO2 emissions by 70 percent by 2050 will not be enough. > > Four books eventually brought me to the flipping point. Archaeologist > Brian Fagan's The Long Summer (Basic, 2004) explicates how > civilization is the gift of a temporary period of mild climate. > Geographer Jared Diamond's Collapse (Penguin Group, 2005) demonstrates > how natural and human-caused environmental catastrophes led to the > collapse of civilizations. Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes > from a Catastrophe (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006) is a page-turning > account of her journeys around the world with environmental scientists > who are documenting species extinction and climate change unmistakably > linked to human action. And biologist Tim Flannery's The Weather > Makers (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006) reveals how he went from being a > skeptical environmentalist to a believing activist as incontrovertible > data linking the increase of carbon dioxide to global warming > accumulated in the past decade. > > It is a matter of the Goldilocks phenomenon. In the last ice age, CO2 > levels were 180 parts per million (ppm)--too cold. Between the > agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, levels rose to > 280 ppm--just right. Today levels are at 380 ppm and are projected to > reach 450 to 550 by the end of the century--too warm. Like a kettle of > water that transforms from liquid to steam when it changes from 99 to > 100 degrees Celsius, the environment itself is about to make a > CO2-driven flip. > > According to Flannery, even if we reduce our carbon dioxide emissions > by 70 percent by 2050, average global temperatures will increase > between two and nine degrees by 2100. This rise could lead to the > melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which the March 24 issue of > Science reports is already shrinking at a rate of 224 ¿41 cubic > kilometers a year, double the rate measured in 1996 (Los Angeles uses > one cubic kilometer of water a year). If it and the West Antarctic Ice > Sheet melt, sea levels will rise five to 10 meters, displacing half a > billion inhabitants. > > Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was > once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to > activism. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Enterprise web applications, build robust, secure scalable apps today - Try it now ColdFusion Today ColdFusion 8 beta - Build next generation apps Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:245012 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
