Jones Beene wrote: We are 15-25 years away from a "run-away" greenhouse effect now.
Horace wrote: Is this just a guess? It seems to me entirely possible we may be in a runaway mode right now. Measurements of the tundra surface show methane release is increasing and the area of thawing regions are increasing ... Hi All, It's possible that 12,000 years ago solar radiation markedly increased, and that we are now in a "warm room" that could last another 20,000 years, based on the length of the next to the last interglacial (two before ours). Things in a warm room heat up. One way out is to rapidly melt the Arctic ice cap so that the cold Arctic winds could deposit at least 50 feet of "lake effect" snow over North America south to the Ohio River each summer. Reflection of solar radiation from the snow would lower the temperature of Earth; and the snow would stop only when the Arctic Ocean froze over again, leaving a mile-thick sheet of ice over Cleveland as per most of the last few hundred thousand years. The ice cover would help block methane release. Dusting vast stretches of the oceans with iron to increase CO2 consumption may be a good idea; but that may not be enough to stop the current release of methane in the Arctic. Short of melting the Arctic ice cap, the next best thing would be stopping the use of all fossil fuels. The increasing Himalayan rock face would remove existing CO2 as carbonates in the runoff to be fixed by shell fish. This may not work if a deviation amplifying methane release is already under way. What would replace fossil fuels? We could go to a methanol economy, making the methanol from wood chips produced by stump cutting rapidly growing poplars on tree farms. We could use our existing infrastructure -- tanks, pipelinces, "gas" stations, with minor modifications to our engines. We would thus stop sending billions to people who want to kill us and enslave our women. Also, tree farming would provide many jobs. Jack Smith
