Text 11617, 54 rader
Skriven 2007-02-05 21:27:50 av Josh Hill (15056.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: Global warming, among other things
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On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 08:55:34 -0600, Methuselah Jones
<methuselah@altgeek.org> wrote:


>I'd say we understand enough to say that we potentially have a serious 
>problem. When we can't consistently predict whether it's going to rain 
>tomorrow, I don't know how we can say anything with any certainty about 
>the next decade or the next century. Yes, the climate is warming[1]. Yes, 
>curbing greenhouse gasses is a good idea. Alarmism, however, is not. 
>Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Humans do make an impact 
>on the environment, obviously, but I think the overall impact on the 
>macrocosm is less significant than many think it is. As Ray Bradbury 
>said, "The human race likes to give itself airs. One good volcano can 
>produce more greenhouse gases in a year than the human race has in its 
>entire history."

Methuselah, the current projection is /better than 90% chance/ that we
have a serious problem, and /that most of the warming is being caused
by our release of greenhouse gases./. And once they're up there,
greenhouse gases change the environment for hundreds of years.

This is not alarmism. It is common sense.

The weather report isn't a valid analogy. Sure, we can't predict with
certainty whether it will rain tomorrow, but we can predict pretty
damn well that it's going to be hot in July and cold in February. The
same is true for climate projection models. They can't predict that it
will be 90 degrees in Des Moines on August 3rd, 2020, but they /can/
predict a band of /average/ temperatures with high reliability. It's
those average temperatures that we're concerned about.

As to volcanoes, they have produced massive shifts in climate in the
past. That there have in geological time been ice ages on one hand and
periods when the poles were warm seas on the other doesn't mean that
we can or should ignore the changes we are making. We have cities and
coastal communities and we have agriculture and we have huge
populations. We wouldn't want North America to be under a mile of ice
again and we don't want much of Florida and most of Bangladesh to be
under the sea and polar bears to go extinct. Yet there is every reason
to believe that that will happen unless we take action now. With all
due respect to Ray Bradbury, a writer whom I admire greatly,  it would
be the height of irresponsibility to ignore the science and bequeath
these dreadful consequences, some of them irrevocable, to our
children.

-- 
Josh

[Truly] I say to you, [...] angel [...] power will be able to see that [...]
these to whom [...] holy generations [...]. After Jesus said this, he departed.

- The Gospel of Judas
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
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