The general consensus among climate scientists is that the average global temperatures will rise 1.5 to six degrees Celsius by the end of this century. This is roughly as warm as the Earth got about 129,000 years ago, the time between the most recent ice age and the previous one.
Researchers using modern computer models and natural climate records, such as data from ancient coral reefs and samples of deep ice, have found that sea levels at that long-ago time were about four to six meters higher than now. They report in the journal Science that the cause of the ancient sea level rise was significant melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Well sure the temperature is rising. Of COURSE the temperature is rising, we would be in a load of trouble if it was not.
After the most recent ice age, 10,000 years or so ago, some Chinese folk wandered across the frozen Bering Strait and North America was colonized for the first time. YAY!! Almost immediately afterward, the ice melted in the inexorable warming that has always occured after a global ice age.
It is still warming of course. It will continue to warm until we live in a very wet, very warm place. Then, just like every other time in history, a sudden reversal will take place and we shall be plunged into another ice age.
That is just the natural rythm of our planet.
So if we love our planet, we need to consider that any attempts to REVERSE or CHANGE her natural heartbeat cannot be good for her. Oh sure, it might be better for us – as a corporate parasite on her surface – to try and hold back the inevitable warming of Earth. But it will be impossible. Earth is much bigger and much stronger than we are.
I suspect that a bit of digging will reveal that the millions of buffalo that we have rendered virtually extinct were likely contributing as much to “global warming” as we are now with our pollutants. So there’s that nice balance we have restored anyhow – by accident. But neither of those even come close to the warming products that spew from a single volcano. Yep, we’re pretty much an insignificant bug on the surface of this awsome planet.
So YOU GO EARTH!! You just MELT AWAY!! It is your prerogative to warm and cool and warm and cool. Only a fool would try and change you. And if you wipe out a couple of billion of us parasites on your surface – well, we know that we’re over populated anyhow. And there is not a thing that we either can, or should, be doing about it.
hmm- so perhaps we can agree that the planet lives a natural cycle that involves the temperature and waterline’s rise and fall. this does not mean we have treated the planet well, or that she doesn’t have reason to be seriously pissed at us. nor does it mean that our activities haven’t destabilized this process, perhaps beyond the point at which the planet could deal with her children’s mess herself.
have you ever seen a map of the toxic places in canada? it’s like a dark grid of seepage, grey air, cancers and lung disease. walking the streets of my downtown ‘hood yesterday i was delighted by the happy crowds of moutnain revellers, but i can’t help but notice that the air smells deeply, sickeningly bad. the exhaust fumes, the tar and concrete wrapped over great stretches of earth, are making it impossible for it to breathe, sprout plant life, heal.
so yeah, you go earth! do you thing as best you can with us plastic-wrapping and aerosoling you, and we’ll continue to dedicate our time to enjoying what’s left, and looking away from the rising piles of styrofoam and out-dated computers and things. in fact, lots of us hate what we’ve become to the point that we are nearly begging for punshiment from you. we are cheering on an idea we have about a moral annihilation. we are producing huge amounts of apocalypic texts. and sometimes i wonder if this is just another way of avoiding the hard work of changing our ways, of working on systems to right global imbalance, to feed and protect the great majority who suffer in the most extreme way for our blinkered behavior. when those people feel secure, healthy and clear enough to speak, maybe we’ll find in them whole other worlds of possible relationships with our planet. and maybe, with free, functional, adaptable tools for communication and organization we’ll be able to draw ideas from other (squelched like the planet) places in the power geometry that might be new, and smart, and healthy.
who knows.
cheers.
risa
I believe that you have hit the nail squarely on the head risa.
What frightens me is that our best environmentalists are being drawn into the wrong fight. I am convinced that someone as brilliant as Dr. Suzuki (my personal diety) knows better but continues to play along because it gets more people involved in the fight – the GOOD fight.
What about Fluoride? What about artificial estrogens? The polar bears won’t go extinct due to global warming – the PCB’s will have killed them long before. We are ruining our planet with chemicals and then fighting the wrong battle.
It reminds me of the old magician’s trick: He gets you to watch his left hand while actually does the trick with his right. Or a wily general who gets you to commit your troops over “here” with a feint while his main force attacks over “there” at the real objective.
I think that global warming is a fact. It is not a problem to be solved. We need to accept it and embrace it. We certainly need to PREPARE for it. But we cannot stop it.
March 26th, 2006 at 10:54 am
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-03-23-voa57.cfm
April 6th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Well sure the temperature is rising. Of COURSE the temperature is rising, we would be in a load of trouble if it was not.
After the most recent ice age, 10,000 years or so ago, some Chinese folk wandered across the frozen Bering Strait and North America was colonized for the first time. YAY!! Almost immediately afterward, the ice melted in the inexorable warming that has always occured after a global ice age.
It is still warming of course. It will continue to warm until we live in a very wet, very warm place. Then, just like every other time in history, a sudden reversal will take place and we shall be plunged into another ice age.
That is just the natural rythm of our planet.
So if we love our planet, we need to consider that any attempts to REVERSE or CHANGE her natural heartbeat cannot be good for her. Oh sure, it might be better for us – as a corporate parasite on her surface – to try and hold back the inevitable warming of Earth. But it will be impossible. Earth is much bigger and much stronger than we are.
I suspect that a bit of digging will reveal that the millions of buffalo that we have rendered virtually extinct were likely contributing as much to “global warming” as we are now with our pollutants. So there’s that nice balance we have restored anyhow – by accident. But neither of those even come close to the warming products that spew from a single volcano. Yep, we’re pretty much an insignificant bug on the surface of this awsome planet.
So YOU GO EARTH!! You just MELT AWAY!! It is your prerogative to warm and cool and warm and cool. Only a fool would try and change you. And if you wipe out a couple of billion of us parasites on your surface – well, we know that we’re over populated anyhow. And there is not a thing that we either can, or should, be doing about it.
May 1st, 2006 at 10:21 am
hmm- so perhaps we can agree that the planet lives a natural cycle that involves the temperature and waterline’s rise and fall. this does not mean we have treated the planet well, or that she doesn’t have reason to be seriously pissed at us. nor does it mean that our activities haven’t destabilized this process, perhaps beyond the point at which the planet could deal with her children’s mess herself.
have you ever seen a map of the toxic places in canada? it’s like a dark grid of seepage, grey air, cancers and lung disease. walking the streets of my downtown ‘hood yesterday i was delighted by the happy crowds of moutnain revellers, but i can’t help but notice that the air smells deeply, sickeningly bad. the exhaust fumes, the tar and concrete wrapped over great stretches of earth, are making it impossible for it to breathe, sprout plant life, heal.
so yeah, you go earth! do you thing as best you can with us plastic-wrapping and aerosoling you, and we’ll continue to dedicate our time to enjoying what’s left, and looking away from the rising piles of styrofoam and out-dated computers and things. in fact, lots of us hate what we’ve become to the point that we are nearly begging for punshiment from you. we are cheering on an idea we have about a moral annihilation. we are producing huge amounts of apocalypic texts. and sometimes i wonder if this is just another way of avoiding the hard work of changing our ways, of working on systems to right global imbalance, to feed and protect the great majority who suffer in the most extreme way for our blinkered behavior. when those people feel secure, healthy and clear enough to speak, maybe we’ll find in them whole other worlds of possible relationships with our planet. and maybe, with free, functional, adaptable tools for communication and organization we’ll be able to draw ideas from other (squelched like the planet) places in the power geometry that might be new, and smart, and healthy.
who knows.
cheers.
risa
June 12th, 2006 at 9:13 am
I believe that you have hit the nail squarely on the head risa.
What frightens me is that our best environmentalists are being drawn into the wrong fight. I am convinced that someone as brilliant as Dr. Suzuki (my personal diety) knows better but continues to play along because it gets more people involved in the fight – the GOOD fight.
What about Fluoride? What about artificial estrogens? The polar bears won’t go extinct due to global warming – the PCB’s will have killed them long before. We are ruining our planet with chemicals and then fighting the wrong battle.
It reminds me of the old magician’s trick: He gets you to watch his left hand while actually does the trick with his right. Or a wily general who gets you to commit your troops over “here” with a feint while his main force attacks over “there” at the real objective.
I think that global warming is a fact. It is not a problem to be solved. We need to accept it and embrace it. We certainly need to PREPARE for it. But we cannot stop it.