Letters to the Editor
zzz05
Published Letters: 431 Editor's Choice: 9
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OK, let's look at this another way
[Read the article: The cold truth about climate change]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The amount of CO2 man contributes to the total increase in the level of that gas is miniscule compared to natural causes. Even the trees that the Greens love to plant emit some CO2 at night (Its called respiration, and even though it represents only 100th of the CO2 plants inspire for the photosynthesis process, it is still a significant amount considering the green cover on the earth.) There is one quick solution to the rise in CO2 levels, everyone stop breathing!"
Hmm. OK, let's look at this another way. Those who paid attention in high school science might be bored, though.
See, at the beginning of the Carboniferous Era, the carbon dioxide in the air was about 1,500 ppm, as it had been for the vast majority of earth's history, and the average global temperature was about 10 degrees F warmer than it is now. Mind you, I'm not saying that that correlation proves anything. But the combination of high carbon dioxide, warmth, and humidity gave rise to the famously incredibly lush plant life, so thick that the dead plants couldn't even rot fast enough before they got buried and fossilized. In this manner, huge quantities of carbon dioxide were pulled out of the air and turned into fossil carbon, i.e. petroleum and coal; so much that the carbon dioxide in the air was lowered to about 280 ppm, over 100 million years. And (by coincidence perhaps) the average global temperature dropped to about what it is now. And in this environment most of what we now know as "life" evolved, including us.
In the last 100 or so years, we have dug out and burned enough of that fossil carbon to raise the carbon dioxide level in the air from that 280 ppm to 380 ppm. The "amount of CO2 man contributes to the total increase" is not "miniscule" as you say; it can be very easily calculated from the amount of fossil fuel that has been burned, and in fact it's enough to double that increase. So that means, the earth has showed the capacity to swallow the other half. So far.
Of course, the fossil fuel we've been burning has been at an escalating rate, the vast majority of it in the last 30 or so years. Which just happens to match quite well the rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Do you really believe that trees have increased their output of carbon dioxide at night at exactly the same rate as humanity has increased its consumption of fossil fuels? Even though they've been cut down greatly over the same time?
And, do you really believe that we can take a good fraction of that carbon dioxide the plants pulled out of the air over a long hundred million years and pump it back into the atmosphere over a quick century or two, and not change things? Even though the previously stable state of affairs was a lot hotter than now, and even though there's no doubt that carbon dioxide absorbs infrared energy?
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There is NO consensus!
[Read the article: The cold truth about climate change]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From a systems-science standpoint the Earth and its climate is a system, and a very stable system at that. -- marci_m
The point is that the Earth is always undergoing change. -- Spartan30
Would it be fair to say that there is no consensus among climate change denialists?
See also:
"Climate models can predict anything you want them to predict"
"Climate models can't even predict the current climate"
"There is no real warming"
"The warming is caused by the sun"
"The warming is caused by cosmic rays"
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israelis have a variety of opinions
[Read the article: Majority of Israelis want to negotiate with Hamas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]yeah, that was a surprise to me when i first visited israel, many years ago; that there was a large spread in Israeli public opinion, and the center was somewhat to the "left" of what was more or less universal in America. And that was way back in the 70s, before all that's gone down since then.
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get real
[Read the article: Majority of Israelis want to negotiate with Hamas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"....nothing but vermin.
.... If that shall be the case, the Arabs could only run around like cockroaches in a bottle, like drugged cockroaches inside a bottle."
And I suppose if he had said something like "like shooting fish in a barrel", that would mean he thought Palestinians were nothing but fish?
Isn't there enough real substance to talk about without going to extreme lengths to find offense?
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the thing is
[Read the article: Majority of Israelis want to negotiate with Hamas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]quick results aren't going to happen. unfortunately. if the israelis expect that they're going to suddenly make friends with the palestinians, they're wrong. i'd be surprised if they were that dumb. but, that's kind of what voters do; they vote in a peace party, they make some gesture to the palestinians, hope abounds, the militant factions of the palestinians stage another assault of some kind, the climate among the voters change, the hardliners are voted back into power, the militants say that they were right all the time, the "peace offer" was just a sham, status quo.
students of the bible might say it's going to take 40 years in the desert until the older generation on both sides is replaced; that's after hostilities are finally officially abandoned and rapproachment is finally fully embraced.
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mindset
[Read the article: Majority of Israelis want to negotiate with Hamas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]hmm. a consensus among the posters is emerging....
as long as somebody sees the conflict as "Israel vs. the Palestinians", whichever side they are on, they are buying into the mindset that keeps it continuing. When they rotate the frame of reference and look at it as "folks working towards an end to hostilities vs. folks working to keep hostilities going", of either nationality, they are freed to do something positive.
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the public don't wise up.
[Read the article: The rhetoric of slavery and climate change]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]well, don't forget the comparison between "the science is not there to prove global warming", vs "the science is not there to prove that cigarettes cause cancer". the classics never die; especially when it's the same hired mouthpieces in the same organizations who make both arguments.
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who ya gonna believe
[Read the article: The rhetoric of slavery and climate change]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]those shaky sciences of geology, physics, climatology, paleontology, etc., or the firm reliable precise predictions of economists?