Subj : Re: Katrina's real name
To   : Angus McLeod
From : Deuce
Date : Thu Sep 08 2005 10:39 am

  Re: Re: Katrina's real name
  By: Angus McLeod to Deuce on Thu Sep 08 2005 10:16:00

 >  > I have heard some plausible (to me) arguments for it not being a the
 >  > fault of human activity though.
 > 
 > All such arguments seem to pivot on the idea that greenhouse gasses come
 > from such natural sources as forest fires and volcanos.  And even mammoth
 > farts.  Also, previous climatic eras (ice ages, etc), are supposed to
 > indicate that it is a natural process.
 > 
 > Well, if maintainance of global temperature stability is a natural
 > process, we can expect variations over time, such that in one era the
 > Vikings could farm Greenland, and in another, ice would cover large areas
 > of Europe.  But if this is natural, it doesn't mean that the "input" made
 > by an incautious mankind -- even if only contributing a small %age to the
 > overall -- could not have a deleterious effect.  An artificially induced
 > change in ocean pH of 2%, for example, although small, could have far-
 > reaching effects.

Another possibility of course is that we're currently in an ice age and the
only thing keeping the glacers back is human interference.  Global temperature
stability has been proven to not have been the case over long periods of time. 
The theory goes that we simply don't know enough to be able to place any
"blame" for global warming or even decide if it's undesireable.  If (and it's a
strong posssibility) we're currently in one of the small ice ages, it's a damn
good thing we've been polluting.

The tricky bits are:
1) Discovering what, if any effects are traceable to mankind
2) Discovering what the current global environment would be like without mans
interference.

Without both, it's difficult to condem global warming as a bad thing.  That
said however, the great majority of those who study such things professionally
feel that it's our fault and it's bad.

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