Getting warmer...
September 4, 2003 9:26 PM   Subscribe

A new study of climatic history says that the Earth is warmer now than it has been at any time in the past 2,000 years (contradicting another study discussed previously.) The Kazakhs probably agree. If correct, we may be joining the list of societies which made fatally disastrous decisions. Decisions like these [flash.]
posted by homunculus (6 comments total)
 
It is quite sad indeed, to see the glaciers and comparing them with pictures that were taken only a few years ago. The difference is dramatic, sometimes more than half of the glacier has disappeared over the course of only 10 - 20 years.

However I also think this is part of a trend not entirely caused by humans. Glaciers have been disappearing since the last ice age, however the last few years, and especially this year have been extreme. Summer skiing was almost impossible, and will probably be a thing of the past in four or five years.
posted by sebas at 3:51 AM on September 5, 2003


2000 years is not very long. In fact, speaking climatically, it's the last five minutes.
posted by jfuller at 5:40 AM on September 5, 2003


> societies which made fatally disastrous decisions.

Societies don't make decisions. Societies follow the Path of the Retarded Butterfly.
posted by jfuller at 5:42 AM on September 5, 2003


Ah, where to begin ...

First, no temperature study can 'proove' that rising CO2 is responsible for any climate change. That's just not how climate science works. If the study actually claims this we need consider it no further - it's so flawed that nothing else can be right about it.

The situation is analogous to smoking causing cancer. We know that smoking increases the risk for cancer, but except for a very few cases, no one can say that any particular cancer was caused by smoking - or anything else. We just doesn't know enough about how cancer works, or how the body works, to say that.

No amount of temperature data can 'proove' that CO2 causes climate change.

That's not to say that climate change isn't real or that we shouldn't be concerned about CO2. But the claims of the scientists invloved are balderdash.
posted by Jos Bleau at 7:07 AM on September 5, 2003


bleau.

and you point is?

distressing but good post homunculus.
posted by specialk420 at 12:09 PM on September 5, 2003


There was an interesting editorial in the WSJ last week from the guy who wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel, discussing how the downfall of the Islamic Empire (and the Mesopotamian region in particular) mostly had to do with poor allocation of resources, and waste of the environment. Interesting stuff.
posted by cell divide at 2:34 PM on September 5, 2003


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