[Terrapreta] Critical thinking or lack thereof

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Lewis,

Which is Michael Crichton ... fool or knave?  He would deny it and bend the ear of millions doing it ... he is a knave to make such fools, I think (all to sell books or speeches).  I know that global climate process are complex, but the overall trend is warming and the overall active force seeming to cause this warming is the emission of fossil fuel carbon into the atmosphere occurring with fossil fuel burning by humans.

Even with all of the complex interactions occurring in the atmosphere, the global atmosphere has a simple verified action in play (this effect overrides the the smaller effects of the complexities as underlying noise)

Change in degrees F because of rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere has a simple verifiable model 

delta F = 5.35* ln(CO2 concentration now/CO2 concentration then).  In 150 years, 5.35 * ln(380/250) = 2.24 degrees F

By 2050, when CO2 concentrations reach 480 ppmv, the temperature will rise another 5.35*ln(480/380) = 1.24 degrees F.  This, because the ones who listen and bow down to the social bell-weather of to Michael Crichton and don't believe in GW or do anything about it or because the ones who think there are overriding "complexities" that we humans do not understand,  so we should not do anything to disturb Mother Nature (beyond what we already have done).

I am not a fool to agree with the obvious that you point out or to try and grip the simple verifiable mathematical models that predict what we have measured and now see.  I am not a fool if I think the complexities are irrelevant.

A Monarch butterfly can flap it wings in Mexico and cause a typhoon in Bangladesh, maybe.  Still rising CO2 concentrations occurring because from fools are burning TOO MUCH FOSSIL FUEL will cause an increase in global average temperatures and changes in global climate, no matter what the complexities.

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: MMBTUPR at aol.com<mailto:MMBTUPR at aol.com> 
  To: sean.barry at juno.com<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> ; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> ; rukurt at westnet.com.au<mailto:rukurt at westnet.com.au> 
  Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 6:09 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Critical thinking or lack thereof


            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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