Global Warming

A Creationist on the Tacoma (WA) School Board questions the scientific merit of "An Inconvenient Truth," and the Board votes to require all teachers who show the movie to present a "balanced point of view"”namely Biblical prophesy, which of course cannot be questioned about its "scientific merit."”Hoot Mon

Yes, I think what Robert Essenhigh is saying in the link”GLOBAL WARMING NATURAL, MAY END WITHIN 20 YEARS”should be carefully considered. For one thing, there are plenty of geologists who are suspicious that such a warming cycle might be the vanguard of another glaciation.But local air pollution from carbon combustion is enough of a reason, for me at least, to try to clean up the atmosphere. Look at the progress made in LA”if catatlytic converters were not required LA air would not be fit to breathe. So of course there are immediate health benefits to cutting carbon dioxide emissions.”Hoot Mon

Your entire post makes sense to me, except for this last point (above). I was unaware that there are oceanic cycles that substantially disturb the global water column and occur with periods of several thousand years. Probably the effects of such dynamics are quite variable on a global scale. I was under the impression that deep-trench water, for example, is so firmly locked inplace as to be regarded as "fossilized water." Once I took part in a study for USDOE to determine if high-level nuclear wastes could be disposed of in these trenches. Dixie Lee Ray, the energy secretary back then, was promoting deep-sea burial of HLW. The study concluded, affirmatively for her, that once those HLW settled into a trench they would be there for a very long time, even while decay-heating the ambient water. (This is NOT my preferred method of HLW disposal.) So I am curious about these verticle natural cycles. Do you have a reference to recommend?”Hoot Mon

Yup, I pretty much agree. But I fear global-climate instability even more than global warming, which itself may be a measure of our climate entering a relatively unstable period. We may even get warming on the sort term and glaciation on the long term. Add to that the chance that Earth's magnetic poles may reverse themselves sometime soon, which, as I understand it, will temporarily weaken or disrupt the Van Allen belts that protect Earth's atmosphere from the solar winds. We might even lose our atmosphere altogether if the timing of solar winds are coincidental with Earth's polar reversal. Some say Mars lost its atmosphere that way.I'm sure to get my ankles bitten over this, but I can't stop wondering so foolishly about such possibilities.”Hoot Mon