Anthony wrote:

"There's no evidence that this warming trend is
anything but natural (they've been happening for
millions of years, actually), so why on Earth
would we expect a "government" to be able to do
something about it?"

The claim that "There's no evidence that this warming trend is
anything but natural" shows such a complete and utter ignornce
that it belongs in the category of psuedoscience practiced by
Rand Flem-Ath and his Atlantis in Antarctica and Micheal Criton's
slanted and psuedoscientific novel on this subject.

The fact of the matter is that for the last 50 million years or
so, except for the last couple of centuries, global temperature
have been on the long term, despite various fluctuations,
+++falling+++ from the "Hothouse Climate" of the Mesozoic and
the Eocene thermal maximum to what had been modern "Icehouse
Climates". The modern "warming trend", which is now well-
established as being beyond the known range maximum interglacial
climates for the last 500,000, and possibly the last million,
years clearly lacks any comparable nature analogue, as Anthony
falsely claims, for at least the last 80 million years. A
person has to be a global warming denyer of the most dogmatic
sort not to notice that a period of global warming unique in
the geologic history of Earth for at least the last 80 million
years just happens to be occurring at the same time and in
concert with the unique generation of enormous amounts of
greenhouse gases by industrial civilizations.

What is happening today is ocurring faster then the global warming
associated with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). In
case of the PETM, the temperature increase, which occurred over
a few thosuands years has possible natural causes such as massive
meteorite impacts and / or large-scale release of methane efrom
submarine deposits clathrates to explain it. However, in case of
modern global warming neither of these events can be blamed for
it occurence and the production of the man-made greenhouse gases
associated with modern global warming.

Anthony also wrote

"Asteroids are bound to hit this planet again,
wiping out massive amounts of life, as they've
done in the past. What should "governments" do?"

Go look at "Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazard page" at
[impact.arc.nasa.gov]. In this case, governments are actively
searching for these asteroids. If found decades before they impact,
it is quite possible that they could be diverted and a catastrophic
impact avoided. If the physical structure of both asteroids and comets
are understood, it is quite likely that the technological
countermeasures needed to deal with them can be developed. The Temple
II impact was one of the first steps in acquiring information about
the structure and mechanical properties of comets, which are essential
in determining how a threat from a comet can be dealt with.

The cost in human lives and properties from know-nothings, who
believe that governments either cannot do anything or should not
do anything about either preventing or mitigating natural events
is illustrate quite well by the hundreds of deaths and 200 billion
dollars worth of damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The death and
destruction caused by Katrina was perfectly predicted by studies
published in numerous peer-reviewed papers and closely predicted
in the July 2004 "Hurricane Pam Exercise". People died and
property was damaged needlessly because "government" did not
implement reparedness action plans that it could have in time.
People died because people, like Anthony has above, had the utterly
ignorant opinion that there was nothing that government could do
or should about preparing for such disasters even if they cannot
avoided.

My two cents,

Paul H.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
William Faulkner, Act 1, Scene III, Requiem for a Nun (1951)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2005 12:05AM by Paul H..