Peter, What is the mosr reliable research source you have seen on whether or not we have reached the point of no return already - or its just around the corner we are turning now. Here is the point where I am seeing more variations in the scientists community. I know the Antartic ice sheets Larson A and B - truly have signalled a serious point in the cycle. Trisha -----Original Message----- From: Cerebral Palsy List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Peter Hunsberger Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 11:19 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Christian Science Monitor Article regarding Climate and Global Warming On 9/19/07, kat <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > For Ken: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0920/p14s01-sten.html > > And to weigh in on the debate, I planet myself firmly in the middle - I > don't think we humans are necessarily the main cause of global warming The thing that matters is that humans have tipped the global cycles over what is known as an inflection point. Think of it this way: for millions of years the planet has been going through regular solar variations and adapted many ways to compensate for this. It's like a well balanced teeter totter. Sometimes a little hot, sometimes a little cold, but always swinging back and forth. Then humans come along and start piling a huge amount of green house gases on one end of the teeter totter. The teeter totter isn't going to go back into the normal back and forth pattern without some help on the other end of the teeter totter. Humans might not be the main cause for the teeter totter going back and forth, but we are the main reason it's going to stop going back and forth unless we do something about it. > (we haven't been on this planet long enough to be accurate in our > records regarding cyclical data) What may seem surprising is that we can be accurate in figuring out the cycles of the global climate teeter totter going back tens of thousands of years without human recorded climate records. Rather we can measure the amounts of various radioactive isotopes in various geological samples. The one you hear about most often being ice cores from Antarctica. The ratios of these various isotopes can tell us things like temperatures, green house gas concentrations and geological age. Nature has been kind enough to provide us with all the records we need going back over 400, 000 years: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok.html (or search on NOAA antarctic ice cores if you want to get into more detail, though many of the 1st links are a bit old). > but I also think we certainly don't > help matters any in the way we are using up the planet's resources - we > all need to slow down and each do our part to conserve energy and think > about how our activities affect the physical world. When we have > another Ice Age, how are we going to cope? Sooner than that: how are we going to have enough resources when 1 billion + Chinese people start to have life styles similar to North Americans? -- Peter Hunsberger ----------------------- To change your mail settings or leave the C-PALSY list, go here: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?SUBED1=c-palsy ----------------------- To change your mail settings or leave the C-PALSY list, go here: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?SUBED1=c-palsy