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Re: fHuman vs. natural influences on the environment



DGOURLEY@CHEMICAL.uwaterloo.ca (Dana Gourley) wrote:
>I feel like throwing in my two cents worth:
>The responce time of the atmosphere would be very critical to people >trying to study it. A short responce time would speed up the results, 
>and there would be no greenhouse debate.

The other problem with a long response time, of course, is that
if what you put into the atmosphere today affects it 100 years
from now, and the effect is bad, it will take a similar time
period to clear things up, assuming you know how.  The ozone
problem that is occurring now shows this effect.

>It seems to me the critical problem with a long response time is that it 
>impares theoretical modeling of the environment.  Without a good model, 
>we really are flying blind into uncharted territory.  That in my opinion 
>is the strongest argument for taking action now to curb greenhouse 
>emisions(sp?).

Emissions.  Me too.

>I wouldn't want to be arround if we find out 40 years 
>from now that the historical averages are only showing a locally stable 
>position and that we have provided a forcing function that drove us far 
>enough away from this equilibrium that the new local stability point is 
>something like Venus. 
>
>Can anyone think up a historic or geologic event that would show us 
>that we are safe to dump this much CO2 into the atmosphere?  Without 
>the empirical results, the long response time may be a disaster waiting 
>to happen.

Yeah, I can think of one.  A few hundred million years ago, the CO2
we are now releasing into the atmosphere (by burning fossil fuels)
was already there.  The earth was a lot warmer then, but it wasn't
like Venus.

I think we're safe from extinction.  The problem is, that's not the
only bad thing that can happen.  There is a wide variety of potential
side effects, some of them pretty severe, that might occur and that
could result in significant economic and environmental damage.

Tom Gray
Director of Communications
American Wind Energy Association

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Tom Gray <tomgray@econet.org>



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