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Re: [OM] Warmer? Cooler? [was IMG: March 1st Snow in Mid-South]

Subject: Re: [OM] Warmer? Cooler? [was IMG: March 1st Snow in Mid-South]
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:07:29 -0800
ws wrote:
> Not sure what you conclusion is, as you have a way of avoiding saying 
> anything directly. 

I thought I was pretty clear. "My guess is that global temperatures are 
a result of many systemic processes pulling in various directions, only 
some of which we are aware of and even fewer of which we come close to 
understanding."

To put it another way, I believe that any fairly simple explanations 
and/or conclusions about what's going on with the global climate will be 
quite inadequate. Remember, one of the root sources of the discovery of 
Chaos Theory came out of efforts to do short term, small area, weather 
prediction. The existence and nature of Chaos Theory suggest that a 
significant turn toward hotter or colder might rest on the apparently 
random movement of some very small thing in one short moment and 
unknowable location.

> I've been an engineer solving and debugging problems for years. My conclusion 
> is that most of the time circumstantial evidence often points to wrong 
> conclusions. The real problem is often not what you suspected, and often not 
> what management/people want to hear.
>   

I agree with that. It's also been my experience that some events have no 
"acceptable" solution. They jus' gonna happen.

> At the same time, ignoring blatant evidence can equally be a problem, 
> especially due to political BS opinions, or religious persuasions, or to 
> propaganda. So who has a clear mind about such matters?
>
> I tend to trust those who have spent time studying the problem the most. What 
> disturbs me now is the indication that the accumulation of greenhouse gases 
> is not reversible. 

But is that true, or more assumption/assertion than known fact?

> Whereas previous pollutants, once removed, tended to decrease their 
> detrimental affect over time, but greenhouse gases may not respond to a 
> corresponding decrease in their production.
>   

Then again, they may.

> I don't think it takes much to conclude that man's impact on the earth's 
> environment is significant. 

Then again, I read that the largest source of methane is termites, not 
man and his food herds. We're significant, but not the whole story. 
During the great glaciations, the loss of water tied up as ice led to 
opposite climate changes in sub-Saharan Africa, with increased temps, 
conversion of vast areas from forest to grasslands and reduction of rain 
forests to a narrow equatorial band. The effects on species loss and 
change was huge. Yup, nature often manages to do on it's own much 
"worse" than we've managed so far. :-)

> And when you have had to battle cancer or some other environmentally induced 
> problem personally, your perspective changes a lot. As long as people can get 
> by unscathed, denial is a very easy out. But if you have less than a year to 
> live because of some environmental cause, your perspective quickly changes.
>
> It is unfortunate that it takes tragic personal experience to create real 
> change in peoples behavior and choices. It is easy to take a detached 
> attitude until it hits home personally.
>   

 From my perspective, in the specific area I addressed, not toxics, 
recycling, etc, etc., I don't know what I may and may not be denying. I 
don't think we know which way climate is going - and likely can't know 
until it happens.

Chaos and Complexity Theories are very frustrating to those who grew up 
with Cartesian/Newtonian ideas of how the universe works. They also are 
in conflict with a number of underlying major religious ideas of direct 
causality from Karma to the ideas of Aquinas before his vision. Quantum 
theory presents similar problems. Einstein's pliant, "God does not play 
dice with the Universe." may be simple denial, too.

So I might suppose that others are denying the reality of uncertainty. 
All sort' a denial a what may be "real" goin' 'roun'.

A. Moose in Denial
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