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Jim Wolford wrote:
> Sorry this is a bit tardy, but I think this Fifth Estate show will
> also be aired on other days and times during the following week, on
> both CBC TV and Newsworld channels. This morning Bob McKeown was
> interviewed on CBC Radio's The Current. This show tonight is about
> the skeptics or those who deny the scientific evidence for climate
> change/global warming presenting a huge environmental and global issue
> that must be addressed NOW by everyone. I don't mean to start another
> dialogue on this listserv from this message.
>
> On the same subject, I found out from Wolfville's video store, Light
> and Shadow, that Al Gore's DVD, "An Inconvenient Truth", is expected
> to be available for rental (or purchase?) very soon, on Nov. 21/06.
>
> Three cheers to Anna Maria Galante and her small "army" of marchers
> who will arrive at the provincial legislature with their Green Ribbons
> on Friday? (or next Friday?).
Hi Jim & All, Nov 21, 2006
I watched that 5th Estate segment & came away with the belief that
the global warming story is just another case of activists shooting
themselves in the foot while bringing down harm on everyone else. If the
case for global warming is so sound then why was so much time spent in
attempts to discredit those who question it ? I may have blinked at the
wrong time but I don't recall any evidence that the current warming
trend is man-made as opposed to being a natural fluctuation.
If we assume that global warming, brought about by greenhouse gasses
(CO2, CH4, etc), will at some future date lead to problems then certain
changes in lifestyle are indicated. These changes in lifestyle, so far
as I am aware, all come to a focus at one point; a need to decrease per
capita energy consumption.
But these same changes in lifestyle are also indicated by problems
that have been around for decades; smog, low-level ozone, acid rain,
mercury pollution, urban sprawl and the associated degradation of
watersheds and pollution of waterways to name a few that come to mind.
Too much emphasis on hypothetical future problems draws attention from
these current problems and provides a convenient excuse for inaction
while the problem is 'studied'.
It is informative to look back a few years and observe the concerns
of climatologists in 1975 (H. Lansford, Climate outlook: variable and
possibly cooler Smithsonian 6(8): 140- 151). In the best traditions of
Laputa, the future in 1975 also looked bleak but then the prospect was
cooling of the Northern Hemisphere. "Most climatologists agree on one
documented fact-- the Northern Hemisphere has been cooling off for the
last quarter-century or so, especially in higher latitudes....This
cooling, which began in the 1940s and became more pronounced after 1960,
followed a warming trend that had begun in the 1880s....We feel that the
downturn of temperature since 1950...represents a trend..." and
"...cooler average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere will continue
for 20 or 30 years..."
Based on a chart of global temperature over the last 860,000 years
included in this 1975 article, on which there are about 10 peak
temperatures and 11 glacial advances, we are due for a glacial advance
within the next 20,000 years or so.
Since this 1975 article was written (I think) these or similar
fluctuations in temperature have been explained to a major extent by
periodic astronomical fluctuations (orbital distance, axis tilt and (?)
sun output). Does anyone know how temperature fluctuations of the last
several centuries compare with fluctuations that would be expected on
the basis of this astronomical model ? Is the current positive residual
exceptional as compared with residuals over the last 15,000 years ? Was
this astronomical model constructed from independently established
astronomical constants or were the astronomical fluctuations derived by
being fitted to the temperature curves ?
Yours truly, Dave Webster, Kentville
>
> Cheers from Jim in Wolfville
> ----------
> From: Patrica Hawes <phawes@eastlink.ca>
> Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 18:25:00 -0400
> To: jim wolford <jimwolford@eastlink.ca>
> Subject: Fifth Estate tonight at 9 p.m., CBC-TV -- from John Doyle's
> Globe and Mail column, 11/15/06
>
> Globe and Mail, Nov. 15, 2006, Wed., by John Doyle in Review section on TV
>
> The fifth estate (CBC, 9 p.m.) is about those who deny that this
> global-warming thing is a problem. Bob McKeown investigates why the
> debate on the issue seems infused with intense partisanship. The
> program looks at a small but powerful group of scientists who argue,
> among other claims, that global warming may be a good thing -- and it
> finds links between those scientists and the oil and coal industries.
> The creeps. I hope they wake up to Nelly Furtado every day for a year.
> That'll settle their hash.
>
> Dates and times may vary across the country. Check local listings.
>
> jdoyle@globeandmail.com
>
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