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July 22, 2007 Don't hold your breath until humans have decreased their burning of petroleum and coal, thus slowing the trend toward global warming. Even if America and Europe faithfully follow a "green" philosophy, China and India are not going to do it. Some of their coastal cities are prosperous, but a billion people in their interior regions are close to starvation. Curtailing the burning of coal and oil would prevent progress and thus condemn them to perpetual poverty. Considering the history of corruption in those countries (and in other heavily populated places like Nigeria and Indonesia), all we would do by setting a good-guy example is weaken ourselves. And considering various political trends in the world, we're going to need all the strength we can muster. Geology and Atmosphere scientists tell us there have been several examples of significant global cooling, other than the great ice ages. (You can easily learn more about any of these on Wikipedia.) About 12,000 years ago there was what's called the Younger Dryas, probably caused by a relatively small asteroid hitting the earth, and loading the stratosphere with heat-reflecting dust. Around the year 1700, there was the Maunder Minimum, when the sun's heat output decreased (along with visible sunspots). In 1815, the volcano Tambora exploded, blowing dust into the stratosphere, and in 1883 the Krakatoa volcano had a similar global cooling effect. These all made long winters and more cooling than we would like to occur again, but they show that it can happen. What we should try to get our Government to do now is explode a hydrogen bomb surrounded by a mass of fine clay or other dust, up in the stratosphere. Possibly the first trial should be done near the north pole. Of course there would be a risk of unintended consequences, but the risk of massive drought and coastal flooding is worse. ------------ About the author: Dan Shanefield is a retired engineering professor, who worked at Bell Labs and then at Rutgers University. He wrote the book Industrial Electronics for Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians. Visit his website here. Email: shanefield@ieee.org Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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