Hi Brian, At 16:03 01/03/02 -0500, you wrote: >If you have grandchildren you may not want to read this: > <http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0301-02.htm>
I have grandchildren and I have read it. The good news, which I'll mention straight away, is that the Envisat satellite was successfully launched yesterday. This is a large scientific satellite, as large and heavy as a double-decker bus, containing 10 experiments which will be able to measure several important parameters simultaneously -- CO2, O3, atmospheric and ground temperatures, ocean currents, vegetation cover and so forth (including ground heave in the case of the several presently-quiescent super-volcanoes around the world -- each one of which could destroy large areas of earth if active). We must cross our fingers that the Envisat experiments will be powered up without a hitch because their results will be accessible almost immediately on the Internet to scientists all over the world. We can then hope for a better level of debate among scientists than has occurred so far. In previous discussion on FW, what concerned me about the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was that the IPCC Report didn't represent the reservations of some eminent specialists and was railroaded through. This was even admitted by one of IPCC's strongest proponents, Stephen Schneider, when he told "Discover" magazine: <<<< . . . [it entails] getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have . . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. >>>> This is not the way science should be done or scientific evidence presented. It was not surprising therefore that some politicians (particularly European Union politicians) took up the Kyoto Protocols for their own purposes as an anti-American club. They even sent a circus around Asia, particularly to Japan and China, to work up support (without much success). How cynical they've been is evidenced by the fact that EU politicians have hardly mentioned the matter since. Back to Rifkin's article, written in Schneider-approved style, it should be noted that in talking about the rapid climatic changes that have taken place in times past (the rapidity of which there is now no doubt), Rifkin conflates those due to super-volcanoes and asteroids (without mentioning them once in the course of the article!) with those produced by chemical and geological changes of the earth itself. This is naughty. But at least Rifkin quotes a paragraph from the US National Academy of Science's report to which we can certainly pay serious attention: <<<< On the basis of the inference from the paleoclimatic record, it is possible that the projected change will occur not through gradual evolution, proportional to greenhouse gas concentrations, but through abrupt and persistent regime shifts affecting subcontinental or larger regions. Denying the likelihood or downplaying the relevance of past abrupt changes could be costly. >>>> Yes, indeed. There can be no possible quarrel with that statement. But, as already mentioned, the Envisat satellite ought now to give sufficient evidence around which all the relevant scientists around the world should be able to come to a properly considered view in the next year or two. We can then be reasonably certain then that, if required, unified world political action will be taken. Keith __________________________________________________________ “Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.” John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
