SV: Humans causing Global warming > evidence increases

I am a simple lawyer, without quite the level of technological sophistication many of you possess. However, I am scientifically literate enough to understand the threat that our fossil fuel based technologies pose to the environment that supports us, and I am politically savvy enough to understand that only an organized campaign can influence a large enough segment of the American electorate to make a difference.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, what this group needs to do is discover which of the existing environmental advocacy groups already out there is doing the best job on this issue, and help inform that group of the potential role space-based solar power systems could play in solving the problem. I would guess that the Natural Resources Defense Council would be the best bet, though I could be persuaded otherwise. Anyone have any comments on this?
--Mark Wallach

Cc:
--- In ssi_list@... GARY ANSORGE
>
> I'd like to see references to those geological
> records,,,

Unfortunately my favourite online encyclopedia doesn't have this data
but for general climates of the Oligocene, Miocene, and Pleistocene
you can look them up on wikipedia.

The references were geolgical papers have read in the past,
specifically of fossile shells from the arctic where growth rate is
linked to carbondioxide levels in sea water (and by extension to
atmospheric CO2). I will try to find the article in my paper archive
and give title and author.

>
> Life at the level of algae would probably survive
> anything short of a nova, but that doesn't do me or my
> progeny much good. Absolute levels of historical CO2
> are not the point of discussion here. Life adapts, but
> NOT instantaneously. We're discussing a RAPID rate of
> change in CO2, heat retention, world wide H2O levels,
> (and possible flooding of Los Angeles),
> desertification and OUR ability to survive these
> changes. SPS can be the biggest contributor to that
> survival.
>
Civilization may or may not be able to survive these changes, we may
or may not be able to do anything about the changes to to begin with
since we don't know how much lag time climate changes really has. We
may have already done the irrepriable damage to the environment 30
years ago and are waiting for the pendulum to start swinging the other
way 20 years from now.

Survival is also a relative thing. If 90% of the population today
dies, there will be more people left than there were alive 200 years
ago. So although such an event is unthinkable, it doesn't represent
the destruction of the human species. A death rate of 99.9% still
leaves 6 million people alive.

The point you are trying to make isn't survival of the human race but
survival of the present socio-economic system at the level of
technology we in the West have grown accustomed too. You are implying
but don't say a level of luxury to be expected.

Could SPS construction and use contribute to the survival of our
present technological society. Definitely. But it will depend on the
ability of people like us to convince the general public that this is
a viable option. We are doing the entire human race a disservice by
fear mongering. When those fears aren't realized people simply become
cynical about such causes.

Bill

> Gary 7
>
> > This is actually quite incorrect. The geological
> > record shows that we
> > have been in an unusually low CO2 environment for
> > the last 2 million
> > years or so. Evidence from fosillized sea shells
> > indicate that the CO2
> > was much higher for very long periods of time. In
> > fact we seem to be
> > in one of the geologically short (2 - 10 million
> > years) of unusually
> > low levels of atmospheric CO2.
> >
> > Bill
> >
> > --- In ssi_list@... GARY ANSORGE
> > >
> > > The one thing to remember is that all earths
> > carbon
> > > has been bound up in some way at different times,
> > > either as CO2, or calcium carbonate(sea shells)
> > etc.
> > > Rarely has there been so much of it released into
> > the
> > > atmosphere as CO2 as has happened in the last 100
> > > years.
> > >
> > > Gary 7
> > >

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