Letters to the Editor
ondelette
Published Letters: 1984 Editor's Choice: 19
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@Clarification
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt and Iraq -- Together Forever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But global warming was not in a state of known science from 1993-2003. It was in a state of rapidly expanding research, yet only one basic viewpoint predominated throughout all the published literature over the course of an entire decate.
Paul Rosenberg
Okay, you and I both. I should have been less cryptic. I have in front of me (literally, I got it out of my bookcase just to write back to you) a copy of the NIST Center for Computing and Applied Mathematics "Summary Report of Activities in Applied Mathematics, February 1990". Summary Report 2.15 (pp. 24-26) is called "Gaia and Human Economic Activity" (B.W.Rust, and F.J.Crosby). In it, it clearly shows that warming is occuring, that the current decade (1980-1990) is the warmest on record (since 1840). It even more clearly shows a smooth increase, matching an exponential with deviation in the latter half of the 20th century, of CO2 in the atmosphere since 1860.
What I am saying is that the three facts that are usually cited in the global warming "debate", that the atmosphere is warming, that it is due to greenhouse gasses, and that those gasses are due to human output aren't very controversial. The most controversial of the three was that it is the greenhouse gasses causing the warming, as the stuff I just cited shows, the other two were being nailed down decades ago. There is a fourth: that it will continue. It has also been the subject of controversy.
That there has been a lot of research and it is a fertile area for research: absolutely. But that research, if you go look at it, isn't about the "debate" as it is characterized by the political parties and the media.
For instance, one area that there was a lot of debate about was that that the attractor landscape for the system was a single global attractor at extremely high temperature. The picture turned out to be more complex, although such a high temperature attractor exists (I mention this because I know more about it than some others). Other debates focussed on environmental impact, and impact on food supply, rate of de-glaciation, increase in the sea level, role of ice, role of clouds, whether the system could be modeled as a Rayleigh-Benard system, a Turing instability, what weather phenomena to expect, etc., etc.
But not whether the atmosphere is heating up. It is. In science, we don't vote on facts.
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Correction
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt and Iraq -- Together Forever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]should read CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, sorry.
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@Paul
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt and Iraq -- Together Forever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wasn't debating you. Was trying to explain why. What I was trying to say, with examples, was that there are tons of things to research and debate w/resp to global warming, even the name (I wish they had called it global heating). But the debate framed in the media and the halls of government wasn't thost things. That's all. Zheesh (how do you spell zheesh), I'm a scientist (mathematician) and I worked in complex fluid flows ca. 1990.
I don't know how to put this, but you and I agree on tons of things, not few things. We disagree on few things, not tons of things.
But right now I have a very fundamental disagreement with you. Its about my gender.
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@The Irony Laws Of History and The Pleasures of Pop Culture
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt and Iraq -- Together Forever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Was this what you were refering me to? My comment was about this:
I'm not sure who she's debating with, but one thing I know: It ain't me babe.
am I being dense?
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Okay, I'll bite
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt and Iraq -- Together Forever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]rtf100, you made a prediction, please fill in the details. What war will start, who will be the parties, which million people will die...You know, the details that led you to this conclusion.
I personally believe we need a plan for after/during the withdrawal, just as there should have been one for after Saddam, once my plan for before Saddam (trust Hans Blix) got rejected.
But you seem to think there is only one inevitable outcome, so I would like you to supply some reasoning, make some predictions, kinda go on the record.
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the farmer has it pretty much right
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt and Iraq -- Together Forever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Paul R,
To remove all doubt (Mark Twain please forgive),
Gender: Male
Presidential Voting Record: Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Kerry. Ashamed to admit that although I supported and shouted for 18X72, 1984 was the first race I voted in. I would have voted in 1980, but I was out of the country for most of the year, and sick as a dog for the rest of it.
ondelette is a mathematical object, a wavelet in English. I like the French word better because the first book I read on them was "Ondelettes et Operateurs" by Yves Meyer.
Not a Bushie, not conning you about my familiarity with science, not female.
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I registered a weird shock on this one...
[Read the article: Iran-Britain conflict shows the dangers of our ongoing presence in Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]at watching the coverage stay so in the background all day. The NYT has a huge picture of the Pakistani cricket team mourning their coach on the front page, international incident be damned.
Remember that scene in "The Interpreter" where they're on the bus and the lady says "The man forgot his lunch", and the agent says, "Oh, man!"
Oh, man!
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@WT @PR
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt and Iraq -- Together Forever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The upshot: if you're male, please don't call yourself fluffy, or Brigitte. If you do, don't get pissed when someone addresses you as she. Don't, in other words, take unfair advantage of the cultural assumptions we all share just to make a cheap point.
Fair enough, have been using the handle for a couple of years now, in a lot of places, though. Wasn't pissed. Was trying to defuse--obviously it didn't work, my apologies. I was much more floored about being called a Bushie, but have long since gotten over it.
Not sure how I got the reputation as a right winger, I don't recall writing anything right wing. But in case there is any residual confusion (that my voting record and occupation didn't clear up,...chuckle), I am commenting and reading this blog because I like the opinions expressed here and the way the discussion waxes intellectual. No other agenda. Peace?