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Posted: 3/22/2002 8:49:28 AM EDT
From an academic, no less!

[url]http://www.hillsdale.edu/newimprimis/2002/march/default.htm[/url]

[quote}For the next several decades, fossil fuels are key to maintaining Americans' way of life and improving the human condition. According to the scientific facts as we know them today, there is no environmental reason we should not continue using them.
[/quote]
Link Posted: 3/22/2002 9:02:52 AM EDT
[#1]
Here's a quote for those who don't have time to read the whole thing:

"In the twentieth century, the global average surface temperature rose about 0.5 degrees Celsius. At first glance, one might think this attributable to human fossil fuel use, which increased sharply over the past 100 years. But a closer look at twentieth century temperatures shows three distinct trends: First, a strong warming trend of about 0.5 degrees Celsius began in the late nineteenth century and peaked around 1940. Then, oddly, there was a cooling trend from 1940 until the late 1970s. And a modest warming trend occurred from the late 1970s to the present. [See Chart 2, illustrating surface temperature changes sampled worldwide and analyzed by Cambridge Research Unit (solid line) and NASA-Goddard Institute of Space Studies (dotted line). Both lines show these three distinct phases.]

How do we interpret this data? We know that about 80 percent of the carbon dioxide from human activities was added to the air after 1940. Thus increased carbon dioxide in the air cannot account for the pre-1940 warming trend. That trend had to be largely natural. Then, as the air's carbon dioxide content increased most rapidly, temperatures dropped for nearly 40 years. And it seems that human effects amount at most to about 0.1 degree Celsius per decade -- the maximum increase in warming seen after the 1970s. "

My additions:

1. There are very accurate records of global temperature in both tree rings and in ice cores from the poles.  If you look at the recent warming trend, the eco's have some ammunition.  The earth has been warming since the '70's.

But if you look at the last 5,000 year, or the last 5 million years, it is obvious that the recent warming tend is no more than noise in the overall cycles.

2. I saw an article in Scientific American that had agronomists (plant scientists) discussing global warming and greenhouse gasses.  They said that, if a warming trend is occurring, it cannot be because of a long-term rise in CO2.  Because when CO2 rises, plants use it to grow faster, and spew out oxygen faster, and the system self-corrects due to faster plant growth.  Makes sense to me.

So, to keep this firearms-related, there is no reason to fear that discharging your firearms will contribute to greenhouses gasses or global warming.  
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