[extropy-chat] warmer weather = better wine

Tue Nov 18 20:02:38 UTC 2003

--- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > Spike wrote,
> > > Some folks talk about global warming like its a BAD thing.
> > > 
> > > Global warming linked to wine quality
> > > Monday, November 17, 2003 Posted: 10:05 AM EST (1505 GMT)
> > 
> > Does this mean you believe in global warming now?
> > 
> > The argument against global warming seems to be a mixture of 
> > some reports denying that it is happening, while other reports
> claim
> it is 
> > happening and is a good thing.  I have never understood how the 
> > mutually-exclusive reports refute global warming theory.
> 
> Harvey I recognize that there are mutually exclusive
> theories on this topic.  I do not subscribe to both.
> 
> Ive always believed in global warming in a sense:
> I also believe in motherhood and apple pie, I like both.

Well, first you must separate anthropogenic global warming from
cosmological and environmental global warming, or, more properly,
climate change. 

Cosmological global warming comes from cycles in Earth's orbital
dynamics as well as changes in solar output cycles, even the degree of
flux in cosmic radiation as our solar system migrates from one galactic
arm to another. Environmental global warming comes from changes in
plate tectonics (for example, El Nino is now considered to be mostly an
artifact of Himalayan uplift), as well as changes in how life forms
process different chemicals in the ecosystem (for example, how well
phytoplankton populate the oceans and sequester carbon, etc).

Anthropogenic global warming is considered to be 'our fault' and
therfore something we are responsible for doing something about, while
non-anthropogenic global warming is seen as part of the natural order.
Why we are not considered to be part of the ecosystem like any other
naturally evolved species is a political issue, possibly part of the
aberrant luddite/humanist predeliction for species self-hate.

Originally, proponents of 'global warming' were claiming that Earth has
undergone significant temperature changes in the 20th and will
experience huge changes in the 21st century unless we adopt their
socialist-luddite political agenda. Other parties have their own
agendas that coincide with the socialist-luddite agenda of parties in
the western nations. 

As the US is the most capitalist nation and the biggest holdout against
global consensus on climate change, as well as the biggest producer of
'greenhouse gasses' (though only if you refuse to count the carbon
sequestration occuring as a result of the US's forest regrowth
policies, policies, which if counted, make the US a net negative
contributor to global warming). Other agendas include the socialist
economies of europe seeking economic parity or advantage over the US,
Communist China seeking to assert economic dominance over the world,
and Muslim fundamentalists seeking to eliminate the oil based financial
support of autocratic moderate or secular regimes in the muslim world.
It becomes clear that most of the rest of the world has a vested
interest in dragging down the US economy with economically burdensome
regulation and taxation to ostensibly support carbon sequestration, but
which will instead be spent, as it is spent in european nations, on
socialist welfare programs.

More accurate science has determined that the temperature change over
the 20th centure was actually less than 1 degree and that somewhere
between 1/4 to 2/3 of this change is not anthropogenic in nature. This
science, even when improperly interpreted by the UN Climate Change
Report (according to the scientists who originally developed much of
the data the UN based its conclusions on), now claims that climate
change over the next century will incur temperature changes in the
order of 3-6 degrees at most, assuming nothing is done. Claims involve
a collapse of the ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica and global
flooding as a result.

This science ignores several facts:
a) the effect of CO on warming follows a diminishing returns curve, not
a linear or increasing returns curve as claimed by many proponents of
global warming theory. As CO levels increase, increases in temperature
decrease.

b) much anthropogenic warming is due to CFC ozone hole related UV
radiation retarding phytoplankton growth in the southern oceans.
Phytoplankon are possibly the biggest contributor to ecological
regulation of global temperatures through their carbon and methane
sequestration to the abyssal depths. Since CFCs are now banned,
chlorine content in the atmosphere is decreasing and is expected to be
back to near-natural levels within 15-20 years.

c) most of the recorded sea level rise is not part of the oceanic
levels, but specifically the rise in the Caspian Sea due to increased
precipitation in central asia. The Caspian Sea acts as a buffer or
battery for the rest of the world, capable of rising as much as 200
meters before beginning to drain into the Black Sea, assuming no dams
are built to add increased capacity to this reservoir. This 200 meter
rise would mitigate over a meter of rise in ocean levels for the rest
of the world.

d) Much of the Greenland Ice Cap is considered now to be an artifact of
the Little Ice Age, with ice flow rates now accelerating at the edge
due to increases in ice depth caused over 600 years ago.

e) Claims about future collapse of the Antarctice Ice Cap ignore the
facts that the last time Antarctica was ice free (over 22 million years
ago, the last time the Earth was impacted by a major impactor), it was
tectonically joined to South America and global temperatures were in
the order of 12-15 degrees higher. There were no circumpolar oceanic or
wind currents causing thermal isolation of the continent as there are
now, because of this land link to South America.

f) Another significant contributor to global warming is not CO, but
deforestation of the Sahara, specifically, by third world nations
inhabited by hunter-gatherer and migratory agrarian societies, NOT
technologically advanced industrial nations. Current prescriptions for
alleviating global warming make no attempt at mitigating this problem
area.

So, to conclude: enforce the ban on CFCs, explore spending pollution
tax credit commodities on encouraging phytoplankton carbon
sequestration, and reforest the Sahara. Until you do all this, don't
bother me with prescriptions of doom and gloom and demands for socliast
agendas. I'm going to be busy enjoying the benefits of improved climate
at northern latitudes... and sipping better wine...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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