'US climate policy bigger threat to world than terrorism'

I second the idea posited in farmerman's above post; I'm all for cleaner air, simply because it's healthier for all living things. The strict environmental regulations in California has had a dramatic effect on our air quality in California. We rarely experience air alerts any more, because the toxicity in our air has been improved dramatically from a few decades ago. All new cars sold in California must meet strict smog guidelines, and must be checked every few years. Even flying into Los Angeles, the gridlock capital of California, has changed from black smog to cleaner air. When I visited China in the early 90, I remember peering out of my 30th floor window, and seeing black smoke stacks spewing smoke over the city. My visit ten years later was a complete, or nearly, turn-around in their emission of smoke. The dramatic change were many. More cars and fewer bikes, a new international airport, more tall buildings, and a much cleaner city. No trash in the streets or sidewalks. This proves to me that government must make the rules and changes to effect improvements in our environment. GWBush is doing a poor job at it.

Thank you Farmerman...

Of course, an alternative theory is that Mrs. Claus uses pole-reversal as the measuring device letting her know she really ought to set to another attempt at dieting.

farmerperson

That climate change has been 'politicized' is a very good thing. There is every good reason that it should be, in the same manner that auto safety or building codes ought to fall within community oversight and not be left to folks out to make the dollars. Acknowledging we ought to learn as much as we can, of course.

And my I ask from where you derive the 'less than half' claim?

my less than half claim . came from the amreican Geophysical Union, which although it contains many non climatocentrist researchers, it also contains the "non-tv weathermen" meteorlogists, climatologists and geographers. The aGU has, in the last year taken a societal stance by publishing a " we should be looking at climate change" , as a common term for more close QA on research. they modify their positions up and down as new data is presented.

By politiicising i meant that I was getting quite annoyed at the "just like a liberal" or "thatsvery conservative of you" I dont think that labeling p[eople by their stance on climate change is necessary or even correct. ill make up my own mind based upon the best evidence AT THE MOMENT and that has nothing to say about my politics.I dont stick to my science theories so tightly that Im forced to be buried with them. on the other hand, i find no rationale why this has turned to an us v Them fight

However, as an earth scientist, i get to hear the emerging arguments at the front end and before the papers (and FOX) get a chance to apply spin.

Auto safety, smoking,building codes. all have perfectly good cause and effect relationships established from study and statistics. Climate change,you seem to say, is based on the same level of scientific inference and data. I strongly disagree, They have only models loaded with default mathematical assumptions and very little hard recordable evidence.To me, and many of my colleagues , we remain unconvinced. Many of us feel that what we see now is but an interglacial phenom that will, if we live long enough, be quickly truncated by a glacial stage.
Might I add, that being in Canada at a glacial maximum, would not be reccomended.

the issue of air pollution as a toxicant seems to have been lost in the climate change data diddle. weve left and entire industry in US get away with keeping old style combustion systems which spew Arsenic and PAHs. Weve let that one get away from us by backing the president and his mindless assault on all environmental policies (of course Im still Pissed at Clinton for being the first to really denut the EPA's toxic release and Superfund programs)
Arsenic is a carcinogen, we dont need to divert ourselves to global warming . We have an acute health risk without climate change.
im fired up about dirty air, but not for the same reasons as most of the anthropogenics fans on this thread.

As a graduate student,I was taught (or should I say it was attempted with much despair) Quaternary Geology by Professor Robert Black (this was in the mid 70's) One day when all of us were sitting around he told an interesting story. One of the factors that maintain glacial ice caps is the ablation ratio, that is the amount of sunlight absorbed by a surface apposed to the amount reflected. Ice caps have a high ablation ratio; they reflect a lot of sunlight. That is crucial to maintain the low atmospheric temperature that allows ice caps to persist. Forest cover, by comparison has a low ablation ratio; it absorbs a lot of sun light and maintains a much warmer atmosphere. In the 50's and early 60's many quaternary geologist, Black among them, became concerned over the amount of forest cover being removed and hypothesized that this was, or could be, sufficient to raise the earth's ablation ratio and initiate a new cycle of glaciations. Thus began a campaign to maintain and restore forests. The fear was in fact groundless, and Black in telling the story both marveled at his own credulity and offered it as a cautionary story of how hypothesizing can way out run the data that underlies it. I have never forgotten that, and the current hullabaloo over global warming seems to me to fall into the same category of controversy.

Blacks papers on Quaternary Patterned ground and moraines are some really important work. i have his collected papers printed by UConn in my personal library. We do alot of exploration in glaciofluvial lag sands

farmerperson

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that similarity. Rather, just making the point that regs (as in auto safety or building codes) have arisen out of the whole range of experiences which have demonstrated that GM or Shell Oil or Pall Mall or private profit-making enterprises generally cannot be trusted to be either truthful nor to operate in the best interests of the community.

Thanks for you clarification on source.

Black had among the most, if not the most, rigorous standards of any instructor I ever had. As I was an archaeology major I was only tangentially subject to his supervision, but his own students were emotional wreaks. We all regarded him as a semi deity and I have always thought of him as one on the most influential individuals in my career.

Acq

I seriously considered archaeology, but digging through shell middens in this northwest coastal climate constitutes a degree of heroism I am not up to. What is your area of concentration?

Blatham

Fiirst of all, that's what undergraduates are for.

I'm a Historic Sites archaeologist. I investigate a period that has both archeological and document resources. But in this game you end up looking at a little of everything. I have yet to excavate a 17th or 18th century euroamerican site that has not had a prehistoric component. If it was a good place to put a house in 1750, it was an equally good place to put a wigwam in 750.

Just remembering that I did my prehistory/early history courses - instead of reading some Latin (which a barely can) and/or Greek (which I don't understand at all) - in archaeology: "Settlements of the Roman Period". (The most interesting of that was the "working week" in Xanten ("Colonia Ulpia Traiana", especially the evenings/nights [Julia was her name, if I remember correctly :wink: ]).

Latin, ...my favorite movie segment comes from the Monty Python movie "The Life of Brian" where Brian is caught writing "Romans go home" on a wall. It is basically about the terror of being sent to the black board in Latin class. I howl and cringe every time I see it. 30 years later and the memories are still to fresh.

And yesterday's graffiti becomes today's archeological site.

Acquiunk, I've been blessed, because I've been to many world-famous sites to see them first hand. From Troy, Ephesus, pyramids, Roman theaters and acquaducts in many countries of Europe and Asia, and museums where they house some of the most important findings such as the Roseta Stone, Dead Sea Scrolls, crafts and jewelry from ancient times, Aztec ruins, Machu Picchu, Knossos, Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, the private archaeological musum in Lima, the Armory in Moscow, and so many other places. I wish to some day visit Iran and/or Iraq to see their treasures. I've visited Jerash and Petra in Jordon, the Coptic Area in Cairo, and St Sophia in Istanbul. I am always in awe of what man had accomplished thousands of years ago. It's one of the reasons I love to travel.

To pull this thread back towards it's original topic One of the inference that can be drawn from the range of cultures from the past that CI lists is the sensitivity of human social organization, particularly post post pleistocene organization, to environmental change. Global warming is a serious issue. Most of the civilizations CI lists disappeared in part because they were unable to respond effectively to environmental change. Global warming is a serious issue. But we have to separate it from pollution which is an equally serious issue. Simply stopping the release of carbon into the atmosphere is not going to make things better. It is going to warm up regardless, and we had better start seriously considering the implications of, and our response to, that fact.

right ci and acquiunk, thtas an important point about civilizations that hadnt coped effectively. they spend time growing into developed societies , like the people of kahokia, then what happened to them.

Acquiunk--is that the scene where John cleese, as a centurion is correcting the language of the graffiti ?
that and the "blessed are the cheesemakers " are great scenes

Farmerman, yes that's the scene. It strikes too close to home for me.

Cahokia is the classic example of urban over development. the American Bottom simply could not support the population they were cramming into that environment and the periphery it seems, was getting increasingly resentful of making up the difference. As a result, with an minor environmental fluctuation, the onset of the little ice age, it collapsed. As Cahokia was the center of a much larger proto civilization, when it went down the rest went with it. Chaco Canyon is another example.