[extropy-chat] on The Climate Change Question

[The Avantguardian]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> Global warming chicken littles also engage in
> political and academic
> repression, INCLUDING a person or persons subscribed
> to this list who
> have communicated with others in their movement and
> attempted to use my
> opinions to damage the academic career of a relative
> of mine.

Mike, I agree with you that there is not yet
conclusive proof of an anthropogenic cause of global
warming. Moreover your point about methane generation
of ruminants is accurate. I for one would like to see
cattle kept under large tents that trap the methane
and utilize it for the powering of devices. (inspired
by Mad Max:Beyond Thunderdome of course) In answer to
your question about the history of the naturally
occuring levels of methane in earths atmosphere, in
recent time scales I don't know. But on geologic time
scales, it is widely held that methane was once one of
the predominant constituents of the atmosphere in very
early times. Since then, presumably, it has been
declining. I do imagine that large herbivorous
dinosaurs probably farted huge volumes of methane. 
      But I object to fossil fuels more on the grounds
of their toxic effects, both by oil spillage during
transport and by polluting the air with free-radicals,
nanoparticles, sulfides, and other substances noxious
to life. I resent the fact that the oil companies are
using the controversy over global warming as a straw
man to defend the rest of their irresponible, toxic,
and sometimes violent practices. As far as I know,
global warming (whether it is actually happening
because of us or not) has not killed anyone yet. The
other negative effects of fossil fuel usage have
killed far too many. Aside from the growing percentage
of children diagnosed with asthma and allergies every
year, there are the wars and the terrorists and other
indirect factors as well. Acid rain and the Asian
Brown Cloud can both be demonstrated to be caused by
burning fossil fuels. Even gulf war syndrome is now
thought to be caused by very large doses of the same
things that we all are breathing this very minute. The
sooner we switch to an alcohol economy, the longer we
will live.
      Heat dissapation will always be a technical
hurdle imposed on our engineering by thermodynamics,
thus global warming will be an issue for some time to
come. But we need to deal with the toxins first and
foremost.


The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson


		
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