Climate stability risk of global warming

>
> > The variability of the sun's output has more impact on the Earth's
> > temperature than man's puny efforts.
>
> Hmm, that is the question.
>
> Man's efforts are less and less puny.
>
> We are talking a climate system which is marginally stable, making
> even a small change to the status quo, injecting even a relatively
> small additional percentage of CO2, has unpredictable effects, and
> could cause the system to become unstable, causing massive climate
> change out of all proportion to the relatively small input change.
>

But the history of the planet actually says the opposite. The climate
and the eco-systems are extremely stable and self correcting to a
massive degree.

Example about 11 000 years ago was a event called the Young Drysden.
It is believed it was the shutting down of the Atlantic
thermo-currents because of a massive increase in fresh water into the
north Atlantic. The result was a 15 degree centegrade temperature drop
that lasted 1000 years. The temperature drop was exceptionally sudden.
Some believe in as little as 1 year time. This caused major changes to
the northern climate of Europe specifically where the event was most
pronounced. After the Youngs Drysden the temperature went up about
seven degrees as quickly as it went down.

Consider a more recent example: Mount Penatubo(?) in the Phillipenes
erupted in 1991 putting thousands of metric tonnes of dust in the air.
The Winters of 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994 were some of the coldest on
record. In fact, had we not had huge amounts of wheat stored in the
silos, a large part of the human race would have died during those
years. Did the eco-systems that we live in change drastically? This
event did more damage to the natural climatic balance of the planet
than the human race has done in the 300 years since industrialization,
yet within four years the climate was back to it usual self.

Now I don't disagree that climate is changing due to human pollution.
But I live in a country where minus 20 centegrade is pretty normal in
the winter. A raise in temperature of just 1 degree to us means longer
growing seasons, and shortter heating seasons. and a increase of two
or three degrees could mean that growing food on a large scale in the
arctic may be possible.

So when you start hyping about climate change being bad you better be
able to qualify it a lot better. A small change in climate may mean
that large parts of present day deserts will get more rain and thus
become important grassland areas for grazing animals just as easily as
it causing desertification of existing ranges.

I think the whole debate of climate change is more about the
pyschology of the people doing the debating than what is being
debated. On one side there is the comfortable worried that climate
change will cause their way of life to become harder, while on the
other side is those that see change even climatic change as an
opportunity.

This reminds me of the man who bought the port in Churchill Manitoba
for $10. When asked why he bought a marginally useful port, he
answered that because of global warming Hudson Bay and the northern
sea routes are becoming ice free longer each year and he is betting
the port at Churchill will become an important sea route because its
closer to almost all of Europe than New York is (look at a globe not
an atlas).

Climate change man made or not is a part of life on a planet.

Bill