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To: ditto5
Actually that came from your NOAA link. The point is that the "hockey stick" stick pronouncements of coral dieoffs are about as sound as the temperature hockey sticks. It's obvious from even a cursory study of temperature proxies that we have experienced warmer decades and much warmer years in the recent past (500 years). Likewise corals have undoubtedly waxed and waned particularly in local areas over centuries and millenia due primarily to local factors. Ocean temperatures have warmed about 1F over the last century (a continuation of a 500 year trend) but a lot of the warming took place in the arctic.

Before we jump on some corals-are-dying-humans-must-stop-CO2 bandwagon, we need to consider whether there is really any crisis and whether we can actually do anything about it.

78 posted on 04/16/2006 4:53:25 AM PDT by palmer (Money problems do not come from a lack of money, but from living an excessive, unrealistic lifestyle)
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To: palmer

Well, part of the problem is that by the time we really know for sure, it's probably too late to prevent massive damage. Oceans are slow to warm and also slow to cool. We have early warning signals (slight warming oceans leading to die-offs). We know that carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases trap heat in the atosphere. We know we are releasing these gases in prodigious quantities. And we know that temperatures are warming. It doesn't take much to connect the dots.

You skeptically say that it's been warming for the last 500 years, which is a convenient timeshot that cuts right out of the little ice age. But it's warming much more rapidly during the past 50-100 years, since industrialization occurred, and a natural trend doesn't explain this.

We can't say with absolute certainity what is going to happen until after the fact, so you're saying this argues for no action? I'd disagree. If you think there is 1 in 100 chance that an earthquake is going to occur, then you consider earthquake insurance. Based on the accumulated evidence the odds of global warming occurring are much higher. So, why wouldn't we take some precautions?

So, what would insurance be? We'd have to cut our fossil fuel consumption, probably drastically in the long run, but we could start moderately. This means we'd be developing energy sources within our country, building new jobs, rather than shipping our money to places like Saudia Arabia and Venezuela where it is probably going to be used against us. It won't happen now until oil really starts to run out because we subsidize fossil fuels. But with some economic incentives, we could have a homegrown energy economy, could worry less about the middle east, and would be building ourselves some breathing room on climate change at the same time. What is the downside to that?


79 posted on 04/16/2006 9:33:29 AM PDT by ditto5
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