SOME EXCELLENT PERSPECTIVE ON THE ENVIRONMENT FROM INDIA

"As the death toll keeps rising, it seems certain that the tsunami on December 26 killed more than the 140,000 who died at Hiroshima. A search for culprits has begun, but is misdirected. The real culprit is nature. Ecologists have created the myth that nature represents a harmonious equilibrium threatened by human excesses. In fact nature's apparent harmony is a short-term illusion between cataclysms. Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything reveals enough natural dangers to make man's survival so far seem a miracle.

Nature's vagaries have made extinct 99.99% of the 30 billion species created since life began. The Ordovician and Devonian extinctions wiped out 80-85% of all living species. The Permian extinction (245 million years ago) wiped out 95%. Humans have done their bit too. Estimates of man-made extinctions range from two per month to 600 per week. Yet, even the high figure pales besides nature's own extinctions. Humans have survived only by squeezing through a series of closing doors over millennia.

The last 2.5 million years witnessed 17 major ice ages, all killers. The periods between the ice ages represented global 'global warming', and were (ironically) saviours. Maybe greenhouse emissions will cause calamitous weather changes in a century. But a greater disaster by far will be the next ice age. The interval between ice ages has been as short as 8,000 years. The last ice age was 10,000 years ago. A new one is due.

We worry that greenhouse gases could raise the earth's temperature by 3 degrees in the next century. But nature itself creates more dramatic warmings. Ice cores from Greenland reveal episodes when temperatures shot up by 15 degrees in 10 years.

Since 1850, humans have lofted seven billion tonnes per year of carbon into the atmosphere. But nature belches 30 times more through volcanoes and decaying vegetation. One single volcanic explosion at Krakatoa, Indonesia, in 1883 threw more particulate matter into the atmosphere than all the industrial smoke ever generated by humans, and created tsunamis that reached Britain. A volcanic eruption at Sumbawa, Indonesia, in 1815 was equivalent to 60,000 Hiroshima bombs. Thirty six cubic miles of dust and ash cloaked the sun globally. Summer failed to warm the earth as usual, leading to the worst year in history for agriculture. Crops failed everywhere, causing famines and epidemics.

Even bigger was the Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago in Sumatra, which led to at least six years of 'volcanic winter'. This is believed by scientists to have brought humans to the verge of extinction: maybe only a few thousand of us survived.

Supervolcanos like Yellowstone Park, USA, will one day wipe us out. Yellowstone's geysers are a tourist attraction, caused by boiling rock underground. These create 1,260 earthquakes a year, most too small to be felt. Yellowstone is the crater of an old supervolcano that has exploded periodically every 600,000 years or so. The last explosion was 630,000 years ago. The next is due".

More here. (Via Commonsense & Wonder)




THE "SETTLED" SCIENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING

It is anything but. Saying it is "settled" is just a desperate attempt to deny reality

Like so many in the media, Mr. Fikes has apparently accepted without much independent thought the prevailing view of global warming and its causes in human activity. He doesn't like the idea that someone like Crichton could question the mainstream view of science. He continues the argument that global warming is real, and the industrialized world we have created is the source of the problem. But is the Earth's atmosphere actually warming, and if it is, what is the real cause?

Recently released reports from Ohio State University, as well as a new study by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, suggest an alternative explanation: fluctuations in solar radiation. The Ohio State study, authored by professor Lonnie G. Thompson, whose area of expertise is earth system science, paleoclimatology, glaciology, and polar geology, showed that there was a sudden climate change approximately 5,200 years ago. Based on carbon dating of plants uncovered by retreating glaciers in Peru, this sudden lowering of the Earth's temperature coincides with radical fluctuations in solar radiation in the same period. Thompson cited evidence that shows that solar radiation first dropped significantly, and then rose over a very short period. He believes this severe oscillation caused the dramatic cooling that followed this solar event.

Some scientists have concluded that these solar oscillations may relate to sun spot activity. As reported at the American Geophysical Union's spring 2002 meeting, scientists have long known that a global cooling period known as the Little Ice Age occurred between A.D. 1450 and 1850, which also corresponded to similarly significant oscillations in solar radiation. This has also been known among climatologists as the Maunder Minimum. In the preceding years, Greenland was actually green.


The Late Maunder Minimum, between A.D. 1670 and 1710, corresponded with known decreased sun spot activity. During this time, northern Europe saw very cold winters, with the canals of Holland freezing solid, as depicted in many Dutch paintings from the period.


Another aspect of the global warming debate to consider is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Today, carbon dioxide is commonly considered a human source resulting from burning of fossil fuels, and the primary ingredient of so-called "greenhouse gases." According to Harvard University professor of geochemistry Daniel Schrag, current levels are about 380 parts per million, and are expected to rise to 1,000 ppm by the end of this century. Not since the Eocene epoch, 55 million to 60 million years ago, have carbon dioxide levels been that high, which begs the question, "What caused those high levels of carbon dioxide?" Could something other than human activity have caused such high levels? Since humans weren't even on the scene for another 53 million to 58 million years, it seems rather unlikely that we were the source of these levels of carbon dioxide during the Eocene.


The point of raising these alternative explanations for the modest rise in global temperatures is that we simply don't have enough data to conclude that human activity is the root cause. It seems probable that human activity is a contributing factor to global warming, but not to the level of confidence that warrants the potential costs of billions of dollars that the U.S. economy, industry and the American people will bear by accepting the terms of the Kyoto Protocol. The penalties imposed by Kyoto could mean the loss of many tens of thousands of American jobs. Moreover, focusing on just this one aspect of global warming causes could result in overlooking other potentially more significant sources and possible solutions.


It also strikes me that those who are the most disturbed by prospects of global warming seem to have a static view of the environment. The Earth is really a living biosphere that is constantly changing. New species are being discovered all the time, and it's possible that some of these are newly emerging species. At the same time, many species are going extinct as well. The creation of new species and the extinction of older species is a natural part of evolution, and of our constantly and naturally changing environment.


I haven't had the opportunity to read Michael Crichton's new book, but from what I have read about it, his objective is to raise questions about the commonly held view of global warming and the motivations of those who are that perspective's strongest advocates. Based on all I have heard, read, seen and learned about the subject, the science is not even close to being settled. There are those who, for one reason or another, accept as fact that human activity is the source of global warming. There are also a significant number of scientists who do not, and in spite of what Mr. Fikes' opinion is on the subject, much more research is needed before the subject can be settled.


The worst part of the current debate is the fact that it is no longer a scientific debate but a political one. A scientist working in most universities today who argues against the politically correct point of view will see his grant money dry up, as well as his future if untenured. I find it also very curious that those opposed to globalization and the free market capitalism have such a convenient argument against modern industry and business.


Before you accept the notion that the success of American industry and American consumerism is responsible for global warming, consider who among us are most vociferously exclaiming our culpability.


More here


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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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