Human pollution leads to environmental stability!

For those of us that never used C02 or Methane in our
global warming calculations, this is non news.
Beneath all of the greenie vs industrialist rhetoric
there is a base problem with the way heat is measured
around the world (ie not very well). To see the real
action in global climate change, I suggest a look at
what is happening at the poles, jet streams, and water
saturation of the atmosphere.

The geology of the planet suggests that nothing is
really stable about the climate (where else do you get
your 100,000 year floods to bury hapless dinosaurs).
Unlike a space colony the earth is too vast to collect
comprehensive data and thus everybody is resorting to
models based on a fraction of the data (usually very
very small). I favor looking at what happens in the
circulation patterns between the poles and tropics and
to date have had an unbroken success in seeing ice
thin, melt, and dissapear.

My two cents are that a space colony would never face
instability (short of planetary size) as all of the
factors are controllable and easy to quantify. On
earth there is a ugly pattern that nothing changes
until everything changes (ice ages). There may not be
any significant warming in majority of the world until
the Arctic is ice free. After than hold on to your
hats... We should be there in 20 years.

- Thor

"Wow! What a hoot this is! After all the concerns
for global warming etc. it appears that it has been a
GOOD thing.... just the excuse the industrialist need
to get coal burning re established to cover the
upcoming oil shortages... and the excuse to trash all
the greeny beanies and their environmental bleating."

Whether global warming is good or bad depends a lot on
where you live, what you want, and what actually
happens (we don't really know). For example, in
northern areas the storms may become more severe but
the weather may be warmer. In the tropics, it may
become even hotter -- which the locals may not like.
People very near the coast may be
flooded, others will suddenly become the proud owners
of ocean-front property.

If the dinosaurs had a space program, they'd still be
here.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html