National Emergencies - Just The Beginning?

[HARDCORE]

With one of the nation?s most active hurricane seasons upon us, one has to wonder if global warming is not at least partially the fault?

With unchecked greenhouse emissions, rampant coal consumption (especially within the Third World), car exhausts, deforestation, and rapid increases in population, it kind of makes you wonder if mankind?s stupidity, and not war, some super volcano or other natural disaster, will inevitably destroy our race?

Another thought that you might want to consider is: ?Should global warming continue, the polar icecaps will begin to melt at a far faster rate!? This means that the usable (Earth) land mass will decrease dramatically, farming regions that feed the planet will become inundated, and mankind (those that do not starve to death), will be packed together like sardines! (Thank God for Right Guard and Listerine!)

"And what of Nature itself?" With a warmer climate, hurricanes may also become far more frequent! Of course, this is not to mention the other violent geological & meteorlogical activity that may also be on the rise?

"Now just think of all of those years when a few people with a modicum of insight, warned that we were screwing up the environment and the ecosystem, and what the consequences might eventually be?"

Now I am not a rabid conversationalist or seer, but it seems to me, this being the only home that we humans have and considering the fact that we can only exist within a narrow range of temperatures and other factors, that we had damned well better smarten up before it is too late! ?That is, unless it is already too late??

It isn?t as if this race does not have enough to worry about after all! I mean with enough space junk, comets, asteroids etc., to destroy us many times over - careening about the galaxy, new diseases appearing on a regular basis, and half the world wanting to blow the other half to Hell, we are also using up our resources like there is no tomorrow!! ?And out of all of these resources, air and water are the most precious!?

But what the Hell, we will probably all go out in a blaze of glory, or decaying to putridity from disease, or drowning in our own idiocy, long before some damned fool pushes that big, red button of doom!

?EDEN NO MORE!!?

VERITAS

[rotorwash]

Your post doesn't exactly represent a stranglehold on reality.

World wide coal consumption is less then 1/10th what it was 150 years ago, in fact there are very few places on earth now where it is even marketably feasible to mine it on a large scale.

There is more usable timber in the US now then there was 120 years ago, and Eastern Europe has seen forests grow back to the point they almost were right after the Black Death.

Most of the oceans of the world are cooling, particularily the Indian and South Pacific. The only ones that are warmer are the Caribbean and the mid Atlantic.

If you took the entire population of the WORLD and sent them to Texas, each man, woman and child would have about 250 square feet to call there own. Then they could farm Oklahoma and use New Mexico for an outhouse. Do the math genius.

Using up our resources like there is no tomorrow? Name one resource that has been depleted to the point it is no longer available, just one.

Good God, man, get a grip.

[Jerry D]

One thing the mumble jumble experts on Global Warming don't bring up is the desert-facation of the world. Everybody's clearing too much land and pouring too much concrete. Which leads to excessive water runoff and the heat from the sun being reflected back to the clouds.then back to the ground again the true version of Global warming. In Atlanta Ga and other big cities they are starting to TAX higher for people with large paved surfaces on their property for the excessive water runoff going into the Sewer system. People in Atlanta that have never had problems with flooding are now getting their basements flooded because of parking lot runoff . Every time Home Depot or Costco builds a store there goes more bare dirt to absorb the rainfall. So expect more urban flooding as long as more big box stores are being built without retaining ponds! That's what my Dad the Earth Science Major keeps telling me all these years

[HARDCORE]

ROTORWASH -

Yes sir Tar Heel - you've got it all nailed down - the Earth is flat, the planet is cooling, the sky is falling, and all is cakes and ale with Mother Nature! Thank God for smart people like you who know for a fact that it is all in our minds! That is, after all, the way that Dear Old Neville once thought as well!

Never claimed to be a genius, far from it in fact. But the last history teacher out of the Old North State (my wife's home) that I encountered, once gave my son a grade on a history test that was almost perfect, save for one question that this teacher said he erred on!

My son answered that Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Brothers first flew, was in North Carolina. To wit, this eminent sage, another well-educated history instructor I believe, blustered and insisted that this historic site was in South Carolina! "Now am I to understand that they moved Kitty Hawk in the last 103 years?"

Well, far be it from me to correct an educated man, not being (as you so eloquently put it) - A GENIUS! As a matter of fact, when I went to a "Father and Son Day" at my son's school just outside of Charlotte, away back when, I had one local kid ask how long it took me to get by boat from California to North Carolina?

Yet another young scholar insisted that Portugal, part of my distant ancestry, was situated just south of Mexico - and this he claimed while in the presence of his educator, a gent who whole-heartedly agreed with the kid's geographic deduction!

While you are entitled to your opinions on climate changes and their ultimate causes, and where they may lead, I am also entitled to believe that which I feel to be correct as well, without attempting to be cute in the process!

Besides, and as you so aptly put it about "Getting a Grip" - In my employment capacity in my younger days, I also worked in New Mexico (Silver City and Raton, among others, to be exact) - "The Site of Your Hypothetical Giant Out House!"

While there, I found it hard enough to maintain a grip upon body parts while urinating at mining sites during a few of the near white-out blizzards that occur in this region! Nor do I possess your all-encompassing and infallible grasp of Geology, Meteorology, and Climatology, my most eminent History professor!

Granted, one would think that the world is in a cooling trend (I saw the movie The Day After Tomorrow too), but some scientist claim, believe it or not, that the polar ice caps are retreating, and not advancing, and this due to global warming (Greenhouse Effect) and other factors?

Now if this is true, and I will bow to your "Infinite, Old Dominion Wisdom" on the subject, and without resorting to smart ass academic remarks I might add - retreating polar ice is hardly a sign of a coming ice age or a world-wide cooling trend in my humble opinion - one of several such glaciated eras that have occurred in the Earth's history thus far I believe!

Does not the melting of vast quantities of ice into surrounding far warmer sea water, after all, point to (not only) rising sea levels, but a warming climate as well? And was this not what occurred during the Pennsylvanian Era? "Now do correct me if I am wrong, and I am sure that you will!!"

And all of these hurricanes of late, storms that feed upon and build in intensity while traveling across warmer water - are they too also figments of my imagination (Cooling indeed) newby! The only thing that may be in a deep freeze here, are ideas that were not open to discussion or interpretation. But then, my education was only geared toward the sciences, and not the liberal arts!

But again, I stand humbled in the presence of true greatness and vast intellect! As such, please do accept my apology - for tis not me, but rather thee and thine, who are cut from "TRUE GENIUS!!"

And by the by, didn't General Joseph Eggleston Johnston once say something akin to this, just before the events of 26 April 1865, near Durhan Station, if you get my point? "Now ask me if I really give a damn?"

And before we both become offensive, as I said, my wife is originally from Albermarle (your State I believe), and I had a relative or two who fought for the South out of Louisiana. Alas, however, one also fought for the North with a Rhode Island unit that claimed to be the first at Vicksburg I believe! This is probably yet another reason for my being so damned thick I suppose!!

"Thank you again - I stand corrected and eternally grateful for your sarcasm! I am sure that it serves you well at school?"

VERITAS

[rotorwash]

Shoot man, you're just as good at sarcasm as I will ever be. My personal feeling is that the jury is still out on global warming. I think it as part of a cyclical trend every 30, 40, maybe 50 years. My first term paper in college was "The Coming Ice Age and Expansion of the Polar Ice Caps." I cited the most learned minds available. The term "Global Warming" hadn't even been coined yet.

As far as respecting "authorities" I am well aware of the extent academians will go to get published or even recognized. It means grant money and professor's chairs, and no matter how obscure, perverse or just plain screwy an idea is, you can always find some PHD (piled higher and deeper) that will defend it.

You, Sir, seem to place more stock in my academic credentials then I do. My personal feeling is that with degrees in hand and a dollar I can by a cheap cup of coffee at any downscale restaurant in town. My senior citizen card at Macydees is worth more.

I too spent some time in New Mexico. Got a degree from the College of Santa Fe. I once owned a fair sized house and 11 acres of the finest desert nobody else wanted. The wind blew so hard and so consistently that it was impossible to keep storm doors on the place. I was familiar with Texas and Arizona also. Texas would blow by one day and Arizona would blow back the next. And yes, those blizzards could be doozies. Everyone that came from out of state to visit us always asked, "Doesn't any one pick up their trash around here?"

Often I have taken volleyball and basketball teams to Albemarle, pleasant little city. By the way, I was born and raised a Yankee.

RW

[HARDCORE]

By the way, I was born and raised a Yankee.

Well Roto, I will try not to let your above disclosure bend my opinion of you, having myself been born in the Home of Lizzy Borden! Alas again, maybe that is the ultimate source of sarcasm, being Yankees by birth of course! It goes along with the turf..

I sold mining tires in Silver City, and did some exploration work in Raton. And for the record, and for what ever it was worth, my major was in Economic Geology, although I got shanghaied early into the "BIG TIRE" end of the business, many years ago.

Hell, back when I studied the subject, we were toying around with a guy named Wagner (pronounced Vegner) and his theory of the Floating Continents. "Theory no more (Tectonic Plates)!"

And although my wife was born in Albermarle, she was raised at a tiny bump in the road called Locust, about 45 miles or so from Charlotte!

And my first term paper was entitled, believe it or not: "Conquest of The Celestial Void", having trouble remembering back that far. This was, of course, back in a time when the only rockets that we (U.S.) had were captured German V-Series!

I found Carolina a bit slower than I was use to, but historically it was great.

VERITAS