Wuwei
Gold Member
- Apr 18, 2015
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There is a wide spectrum of what people believe in global warming, from outright denial to catastrophic. I think the professor and extraterrestrial are too far to the catastrophic.Excuse me for butting in. But I was watching a show about human caused global warming a while back. It was hosted by Bill Nye, the science guy. In it he was talking to somebody who used to be a college professor. As a professor, he had studied the problem of HCGW for at least 15 years. He decided to quit his tenured professorship and start preparing for doomsday. Which he said would happen in about 20 years. Though this next bit is a little more "iffy," I happened across an ebook on the internet that may or may not have been a true story. The author left that decision up to the reader. In it, an extraterrestrial told the author that most of the life on earth would be extinct in about 50 years. Why? Because of the exponential effect HCGW was going to have.
Suppose, at the worst, the average global temperature rises 10 C. All the ice will melt and the sea will rise considerably. But there still will be land in the north and south of the globe that can easily and comfortably support life. So the thoughts of the extraterrestrial are unfounded.
I think the professor is paranoid. He thinks a catastrophe will happen in 20 years. He will be sorry he quit his position.
This is what I think the issues are about what people are thinking. Many of those who are in outright denial are a bit daffy and don't understand the laws of physics, such as thermodynamics, or they invent their own versions. They can be discounted.
The second level is to believe that CO2 etc will lead to a temperature rise but rather slowly. A third level is belief that greenhouse gasses will have accelerations. For example, the methane hydrates on the ocean floor will start bubbling up methane as the ocean gets warmer. Permafrost starts melting and decay of the trapped vegetation will release methane.
It is known that the earth dynamics are bistable. When it is in a high temperature state, there is little ice to reflect sun energy, and there is more land to absorb it and more plants that emit CO2. That will keep the earth hot. When it is cold, there is more ice to reflect light so that less energy is absorbed. There will be fewer plants to emit CO2 and so the earth stays cold (ice age). In any one of those states the earth manages to come back to some more even state like we are in presently, but very slowly.
You will have to decide for yourself.
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