<p>Why don’t you take up Kyoto with the 99 US senators who urged us to not get into such an agreement. Or ask those in the Clinton administration why they didn’t want to sign it either. Why do I feel that if Kerry had won and then also not signed the accord that you would then be taking the other side? </p>
<p>If it were a simple matter of erring on the side of caution with no downside, there would be no controversy. Only when one takes the time to look at both sides of an issue can the complexities involved be appreciated.</p>
<p>When I left Texas in 1990, the beautiful wide-open beach at Boca Chica at the mouth of the Rio Grande River had no buildings on it except for a few broken down dwellings. Wide, white beaches! I hope they didn’t get dumb and build there since that time. On the above link, check out what happened to Bagdad, Mexico in the late 1800s. It is not safe to live on the coast. Oh it might be for 30 or 40 or 50 years and then a storm comes along to refresh & and kick start memories.</p>
<p>The effect of global warming on the hurricanes is indeed second order at best. The effect of global warming on the arctic and antarctic icepacks is not second order. All the proxy records, whether ice cores, tree rings, or whatever, show that the rate of melting is unprecedented. Collectively, we have our heads stuck…in the sand. All so that people can drive, fuel, and manufacture SUV’s, I suppose.</p>
<p>Actually, that’s not necessarily hard science either. Crichton’s last book pointed out a lot of disagreement in the polar ice caps and sea levels. Again, recorded history can’t give you a long enough record to definitively show a trend vs a cycle.</p>
<p>Shrug. There’s a geologist on UCLA’s faculty that I spoke with who was familiar with analysis going back far beyond recorded history. The independent studies of seen, both antarctic and arctic, dovetail. The rate of warming is accelerating and the curve over the past 150 years is unprecedented.</p>
<p>Also remember that Chricton’s book is a work of FICTION. He’s allowed to take considerable liberties with his subject matter. Remember the Jurassic Park craze when everyone was wondering when we were going to clone dinosaurs?</p>
<p>Every serious geologist, climatologist, and pretty much scientist I’ve ever read from or personally encountered has said point blank: Something is going on in our climate. No, we cannot be 100% sure that carbon emissions are the cause (we also cannot be 100% sure why gravity works.) However, knowing full well that it’s going to cause severe problems down the road, why do we want to take chances with speeding it up?</p>
<p>Anyone who lives east of LA or San Francisco should know the disadvantages of this 1 person in an SUV is fine mentality. Industrial nations should look for alternatives and promote alternatives.</p>
<p>Yeah, and did you read all the footnotes to make sure he was never disingenous?</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t think Crichton is qualified to make any arguments about climate. Sure, he researched, but who would you rather believe, a novelist (agreed, a well-educated one) or a climatologist?</p>
<p>C’mon, this is the same guy who claims he bent spoons in one of his books.</p>
<p>I think that we have tied the greatest number of hurricanes in a year now. Global warming or not, we have or are about to turn the corner on oil resources and one way or the other we will use less in the future, it is just a matter of how well we plan for it.</p>
They are simply trying to justify their original wrong guesses, and they are still guessing. They simply don’t have enough data to identify the causes or predict the effects. Sounds a whole lot like the very thing Crichton wrote in Fear. The seas aren’t rising at all.</p>
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And if the pattern holds up for a 100 years, you might actually have a pattern instead of natural variability. Remember, the record we tied has stood for 70 years.</p>
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The same integrity we get from the liberal left on this board when they post ‘Bush speaks to God’ but don’t post or acknowledge the retraction? The same integrity that doesn’t admit that scientist can’t predict sea rise or hurricane paths with any degree of accuracy?</p>
<p>I posted the facts from the article, the rest is conjecture.</p>
<p>When my parents bought a coastal house on a hillside, 35 years ago, We were informed that the houses on this hillridge were the oldest homes in the area. Why, I asked. They old timers replied, “Well you may think that a house along side this coastal river and the beach would be more desirable, but what you don’t see are the foundations of homes that were literally sandblasted, blown away,flooded or rotted from the constant moisture and salt spray.” </p>
<p>The old timers who develop the area in the 20’s are long dead and the developers have no idea other than making money.</p>
<p>Even the natives (tribal) had their villages further inland to escape the weather and tsunami’s.</p>
<p>Unfortunately we now have something called unlimited reimbursement thru flood insurance and all hazard protection from a generous President and Congress.</p>
<p>If you have ever grown tomatoes over the last 20 years, you will have noticed the dramatic change in climate. For whatever the reasons and causes, we should be prepared for change. </p>
<p>Pharoah only suffer relatively a short period.</p>
<p>You posted the “facts,” but you didn’t post the context of the facts. You used clever editing to make an argument support your own. That’s like when journalists take a picture of a “peace rally”, but crop out the surrounding communist hooligans.</p>