-Caveat Lector-
You know this greenhouse effect stuff is really a stretch for my
imagination, to believe.
Have you ever wondered how the earth survived the Mesozoic Era, the Jurrasic
Period of the dinosaurs...? Afterall, consider this....
What about all that CO2 breathed out by the giant creatures of the Jurrasic,
and then consider the huge emmissions of methane that was poured into the
atmosphere during that period of time? Just think of all that "lush
vegetation" that was available... particularly "green veggies" for the
herbivores, and plenty of cephlopod mollusks, sharks, fishes and aquatic
reptiles (sea food) was available for some of the carnivores who craved such
delicacies... (foods that produce a particularly stinky output).
Certainly, if the dinosaurs were as metabolic as every other living
creature, the greatest flatulence of all time must have occurred, producing
massive "gaseous explosions" which have never been equalled!!! (No wonder
man had not "evolved" yet. Man would have NEVER survived this era for this
reason alone!). And to think...
this period lasted over 65 MILLION years!!! Whew! The smell must have been
horrendous! (Might make our local sewer systems smell more like a rose?)
However, every time my EPA approved catalytic converter kicks in, I'm
reminded of the sacrifice the earth has made by giving up this precious
liquid, so I can drive my car to and from work, and remain a taxi service
for the teenagers; and also reminded of just how bad it must have smelled
around the local ponds after feeding time during the times of the dinos.
So, "MAN" is solely responsible for the hole in the ozone and the
'greenhouse' effect being brought into action in a mere 200 years? Compared
to 65 million years of methane and CO2 exposure, and the world did not come
to an end in that amount of time, what makes some hot house lilly scientist
believe that "MAN" can end the world in a fragile 200 years with the use of
liquid dinosaur fossilous?
Sorry... my imagination does not stretch so far as to believe such diatribe
as the "greenhouse effect", regardless of 'statistics'. I might come
closer to believing that Yeltzin, after a night of potato vodka, could bring
the world to the brink of extinction, with the press of a button, than the
use of fossil fuels as being the culprit.
eagle 1
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alamaine Ratliff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 1999 5:16 PM
Subject: [CTRL] (Fwd) Heatwave hits the planet
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> ------- Forwarded message follows -------
> Date sent: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 18:25:54 +0100
> To: "English edition"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> From: Le Monde diplomatique
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(r)
> Subject: Heatwave hits the planet
>
>
> Le Monde diplomatique
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> December 1999
>
>
> HOW TO COMBAT THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT
>
> Heatwave hits the planet
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Motor vehicle manufacturers are doing little to design "clean" cars,
> and public transport operators - often public services - are not
> proving any more responsible, although solutions are available to
> reduce the fumes choking our cities. The rise in carbon dioxide
> emissions from traffic, power stations and industry is exacerbating
> the greenhouse effect, with the risk of climate change. At the UN
> summit in Bonn in early November, more than 60 countries agreed to
> ratify the 1997 Kyoto protocol before 2002. This commits the
> industrialised nations to cutting their emissions of greenhouse gases.
> But the US Senate still wants to stop Washington from ratifying the
> protocol.
>
> by DOMINIQUE FROMMEL *
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> This century has seen a major disruption to the natural weather cycle.
> The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere has
> made the average global temperature rise as fast in the last 100 years
> as in the previous 10,000. But the greenhouse effect is nevertheless
> essential, since without it, the temperature at the Earth's surface
> would fall below 0oC. It is caused by the presence in the atmosphere
> of water vapour and certain gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and
> methane. These gases form a filter allowing certain light rays through
> while at the same time keeping back some of the solar radiation that
> is reflected by the Earth's surface. It is this screening effect that
> gives the planet a temperature conducive to life.
>
> No one any longer seriously disputes that man is responsible for the
> extraordinary rise in the Earth's temperature. We know that population
> growth and industry, both entailing the burning of fossil fuels, are
> behind the atmosphere's higher carbon dioxide content (1). If the
> "laisser faire" attitude to greenhouse gas emissions is allowed to
> continue in the next century, the temperature could rise by some 1o C
> to 3.5o C, compared to 0.5o C in the 20th century.
>
> People have become increasingly aware of ecological issues since the
> first World Conference on the Environment in 1972. Once a luxury only
> the rich countries could afford, preventing climatic risk has become
> one of the major ingredients in sustainable development. This is not
> to say that there is not still much confusion and misunderstanding
> about the "greenhouse effect", for all its media prominence. Although
> this fundamental problem is of crucial importance to the man in the
> street, he feels completely at a loss about it, leaving the public
> debate and decision-making responsibility to the experts and
> politicians. But to take part in the debate, all we need do is bear in
> mind two or three basic questions. What are the consequences of rising
> temperatures for ecosystems and health, is there any way of mitigating
> their effects, and if so, what?
>
> Scientists are not yet able to forecast with any accuracy whether, and
> to what extent, the climate will change in any particular part of the
> world. There is, therefore, still some uncertainty about the scale of
> the warming that will take place in the 21st century. What we can say
> is that the disturbances will not be uniform across the globe. They
> will result in a worsening of extreme weather conditions, and while
> they will affect primarily the most vulnerable populations, no-one
> will be spared.
>
> Given that CO2 emissions are rising, the most likely scenario is not
> difficult to imagine: the greenhouse effect will intensify, the world
> temperature will rise, the water cycle will speed up, evaporation will
> be greater, the atmosphere's water vapour content will be higher. The
> screening effect will increase, with higher rainfall on all
> continents. Melting polar ice caps will result in rising sea levels,
> putting coastal areas at risk, with the salination of deltas and
> flooding of lowlands and archipelagos. Recurrent droughts will reduce
> the range and variety of plant species and exacerbate the shortage of
> drinking water. On top of all these imbalances, there will be a
> greater frequency of natural disasters: cyclones, floods, forest fires
> and landslides (2).
>
> Remember how, in 1997-98, the El Niño phenomenon caused disruption and
> damage of an intensity previously unknown in the circumpacific belt.
>
> Some ecosystems may indeed adapt to climate change, but it will be at
> the cost of radical adjustments to themselves, again with serious
> consequences. CO2 acts as a fertiliser and in high concentrations
> encourages the growth of the most vigorous plant species at the
> expense of the weaker ones. The result is reduced biological diversity
> (3). The effect of the temperature changes on human health has been
> the subject of many multidisciplinary analyses and forecasts, but the
> findings are not at first sight spectacular, since human beings are so
> very adaptable. Of course, waves of heat or cold are accompanied by
> peaks of mortality and, in the countries of the South, cyclones,
> floods and volcanic eruptions take a heavy toll. We also know that
> higher intensities of ultraviolet rays greatly increase the risk of
> skin cancer and affect the immune system (4). Moreover, the suspended
> particulates (aerosols) released by burning fossil fuels weaken the
> respiratory apparatus and are the source of crippling diseases.
> Between 1964 and 1990, for instance, the prevalence of asthma doubled
> both in Britain and Australia and in East Africa.
>
> Spread of infectious diseases
>
> But the greatest danger lies in man's dependence on his environment.
> Migration, the over-concentration of human populations in cities,
> dwindling aquifer reserves, pollution and poverty have always created
> conditions favourable to the spread of infectious micro-organisms. But
> the ability of many parasite- and virus-carrying insects and rodents
> to reproduce and spread disease depends on temperature and
> environmental humidity. In other words, even a modest rise in
> temperature gives the green light for the spread of many agents that
> are pathogenic to humans and animals alike.
>
> Thus, such parasitic diseases as malaria, schistosomiasis and sleeping
> sickness, or viral infections like dengue fever, certain forms of
> encephalitis and haemorrhagic fevers, have gained ground in recent
> years. Either they have reappeared in places where they had been wiped
> out, or they are now found in areas that had previously been spared.
> Over the last ten years, malaria has crossed the 1,800 metre mark in
> East Africa and Madagascar - an altitude it never used to pass.
> Projections for the year 2050 show that by then malaria will threaten
> three billion human beings. Another cause for concern is that between
> 1955 and 1970 only nine countries were affected by arbovirus diseases,
> which are transmitted mainly by mosquitoes. In 1996 a further 28 were
> affected.
>
> In the same way, the number of water-borne diseases is growing. The
> warming of fresh water is encouraging bacteria to breed. The warming
> of salt water, especially when enriched with human effluents, allows
> phytoplanctons, breeding grounds for the cholera bacillus, to
> reproduce at a faster rate. Since 1960, cholera had almost disappeared
> from Latin America, but it claimed 1,368,053 victims between 1991 and
> 1996. At the same time, new infections are springing up or spilling
> over far from the ecological niches where they were formerly confined
> (5). As recent examples have shown, despite the advances made,
> medicine remains helpless in the face of the explosion of many
> unexpected diseases. The 21st century could see the epidemiology of
> infectious diseases, which even today are responsible for nearly one
> third of all deaths, take on a new complexion, especially with the
> spread of zoonoses - infections transmissible from vertebrate animals
> to man and vice versa. It is revealing that the Americans, who are
> seldom lagging behind in strategy, have already launched a new medical
> journal entitled Emerging Infectious Diseases (6).
>
> Some countries, like a number of United Nations agencies - the World
> Health Organisation and the World Meteorological Organisation in
> particular - are aware of the threat (7). They are funding research
> into climatology, organising regular meetings of experts, and have
> paved the way for agreements to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
> However, the problem extends beyond the regulation and transfer of the
> "right to pollute". The commitments given at the Kyoto conference in
> 1997, whereby the industrialised countries would cut emissions of the
> main greenhouse gases by 5.2% by 2012, were still in suspense at the
> 1998 Buenos Aires climate conference, if only because they were
> inadequate to contain the threat. The following conference, which
> concluded in Bonn on 5 November, was also modest in its outcome. True,
> more than 60 countries, including those of the European Union, Japan
> and New Zealand (together accounting for 41% of the greenhouse gases
> produced by the industrialised nations) promised to ratify the Kyoto
> Protocol in time for it to come into force before 2002 (8). But once
> again the oil-producing countries tried to block the agreement and the
> United States, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is
> dragging its feet by making ratification conditional on the outcome of
> the next conference, to be held in The Hague in November 2000 (9).
>
> For some years now a number of economists have come to share the
> ecologists' concerns. They are calculating the value of ecosystems or
> "natural assets" and assessing the price of their degradation, the
> extra cost of delays in bringing in pollution-cutting measures, and
> the potential profits to be gained by using new technologies. In
> short, they are trying to demonstrate to industrialists the profits
> they could earn from conserving natural resources. However, the
> appearance of the concept of the "profitability of fighting pollution"
> is not enough and, in an economy that is expressed only in terms of
> trade, there is no invisible hand to guide the market towards the
> greater good.
>
> That is why apparently modest targets adopted at individual and local
> level could be the way forward. Given the threat to our health, and
> especially to that of our children and grandchildren, it is essential
> that the precautionary principle should be invoked first and foremost.
> Applying this principle means admitting our uncertainty and our
> ignorance, but without making our impotence an excuse for inaction.
> The other merit of the precautionary principle is that it constrains a
> project's promoter, and not its opponent - whether the project is
> industrial or not - to prove that the proposal is harmless to the
> environment and to health.
>
> Even more effective, no doubt, would be the introduction, even in
> nursery school, of "environmental education" and the teaching of a
> modern physical and human geography. If everyone is to be made aware
> of our planet, such education would have to underline the
> interdependence of humankind and the Earth, and stress the parallel
> development of ecosystems and human life. In short, everyone needs to
> be made aware, and take responsibility, well before they reach
> adulthood.
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> * Research director at the Institut national de la santé et de la
> recherche médicale (Inserm) and scientific advisor to the Centre
> international de l'enfance et de la famille (Cidef), Paris.
>
> (1) Between now and the year 2020, population growth will be
> responsible for about 50% of the increase in carbon dioxide in the
> troposphere.
>
> (2) See the series of articles by Jean-Paul Besset, "La terre se
> réchauffe", Le Monde, 26, 27 and 28 November 1997 and S. H. Schneider,
> Où va le climat? Que connaissons-nous du changement climatique?,
> Editions Silence, Loriol, 1996.
>
> (3) See Ignacio Ramonet, "Taking care of the planet", and Alain
> Zecchini, "Emptying the gene pool", Le Monde diplomatique, English
> edition, November 1997 and October 1998 respectively.
>
> (4) M. R. Sears, "Descriptive epidemiology of asthma", The Lancet,
> London, October 1997.
>
> (5) M. E Wilson, "Infectious diseases: an ecological perspective",
> British Medical Journal, 23 December 1995. J. A. Patz, P. R. Epstein,
> T. A. Burke, M. Balbus, "Global climate change and emerging infectious
> diseases", Journal of the American Medical Association, 17 January
> 1996. See also L. Garrett, The Coming Plague, Farrar, Straus and
> Giroux, New York, 1994.
>
> (6) Published by the National Center for Infectious Diseases, GA
> 30333, Atlanta, US.
>
> (7) At a ministerial meeting held at the WHO's initiative on 16 and 17
> June 1999 in London, 50 European countries adopted a declaration
> stating their willingness to take concrete measures to alleviate the
> harmful effects of environmental degradation on health.
>
> (8) For the protocol to come into force, it must be ratified by 55
> countries representing 55% of greenhouse gas emissions. See "Momentum
> to ratify Kyoto Protocol on climate change", Greenpeace press release,
> Bonn, 3 November 1999.
>
> (9) The US Senate is opposed to ratification until two conditions are
> met: it must be possible to keep the commitments to cut emissions by
> making unrestricted use of the market mechanism, and large developing
> countries like India and China must commit themselves to cutting their
> emissions (at present, only 14 of these countries have ratified the
> Kyoto protocol). See Le Monde, 7-8 November 1999.
>
> Translated by Malcolm Greenwood
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 1999 Le Monde diplomatique
>
> <http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1999/12/?c=10envi>
>
> ------- End of forwarded message -------
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