[Terrapreta] Critical thinking or lack thereof

[MMBTUPR at aol.com]

          from          Lewis L Smith

There are a lot of uncertainties surrounding Global Warming, at least as far 
as regional effects and the possible impacts of the different remedial 
measures which have been proposed. 

For example, most people will not have an average experience as this 
phenomenon gets worse. Some will be better off, but some will be worse off. For 
example, Global Warming will cause grain production will go down overall in North 
America, but not everywhere in NA. It will go down from Texas to Iowa, but go up 
from South Dakota through the Canadian provinces.

However, you don't have to have a Ph.D. or go take ice cores in Greenland to 
realize that we do have a very big problem. There are a lot of touristy things 
which one can do to prove it to oneself, things which only take time, money   
and good eyesight    >>>

[1]     Interview a few of the more than 13,000 people which have been 
displaced from their ancestral island homes in the Indian and Pacific oceans 
because, when a high tide coincides with a storm surge, they have no place to stand 
and keep their feet dry.

[2]     Visit the Alaskan fishing villages where the early melting of the ice 
has allowed the spring storms to drive the sea against the coast, destroying 
houses, piers and wharves.

[3]     Visit the people in Alaska who are getting two crops of something in 
one summer, in a land where nobody has gotten two crops of anything in 12,000 
years of human habitation.

[4]     Go to Glacier National Park and compare where the 11 glaciers end 
today with photos taken 50-70 years ago.

[5]     Visit the people in northern Michigan who are raising vegetables in 
the summer here none could be raised before, in human memory.

[6]     Go to the New England coast at high tide and find places where the 
sea today is higher than the white rings around the tops of intertidal rocks. 
These rings indicate where the high tide used to reach in the 1940's.

[7]     Go around Miami Bay at high tide and notice how the sea is lapping 
the underside of the small-craft piers on the 21 islands in the Bay, when it 
should be 12-to 18 inches below them.

[8]     Go to Rincón, Puerto Rico, and see where a housing development is 
falling into the sea, because it was built on a poorly compacted landfill next to 
the shore, and now the sea is pulling out the trash from under the houses and 
scattering it up and down the coast.

And so on !

In brief, people with education, experience, good will and knowledge may well 
argue about who does what to whom, when, where and why, as far as remedies or 
regional impacts are concerned. 

But there can be no doubt that we have a major problem and must give it 
urgent attention. As the Bard would say, those who deny its existence or urgency 
are "fools or knaves". 

Cordially.   ###


**************
Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on 
AOL Living.
      
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
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