Quote:
Originally Posted by W.J. Wilczek
Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit.
- Juvenal, xiv.321.
The cause of global warming has been much debated. The establishment view, supported by corporate-funded research (ExxonMobil), holds that global climate changes are cyclical, over which man, for all his science and invention applied to master the universe, has no control. Opposing this conventional wisdom, there is a growing, and increasingly vocal, opposition who point to pollution (specifically hydrocarbon emissions) in the atmosphere as the cause, and accuse the industrialized nations of “trashing the planet.” And in the politics of the issue - which has nothing to do with science and everything to do with money - the establishment has thus far prevailed. Still, the evidence is mounting; and we cannot long afford to turn a blind eye to what can be plainly seen. The earth is speaking to us, and we should listen - “for wisdom ever echoes nature’s voice.”
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Yes, but the Earth has experienced periods in the past where carbon levels and global temperatures were a lot higher, such as during the Eocene Period (which started about 55 million years ago and lasted for about 20 million years). Scientific evidence seems to indicate that even polar temperatures at that time were about equivalent to the US Pacific Northwest's climate today. Why? What caused it? I can pretty much guarantee it wasn't industrial pollution.
During the
Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), atmospheric carbon levels were estimated to be 2000-3000 parts per million (ppm), compared to about 380 ppm today. If entirely natural processes could account for such extremes then, then why is it so far-fetched to assume that they couldn't easily account for the relatively modest (in comparison) temperature variations we're witnessing today?