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Re: Human vs. natural influences on the environment



On Mon, 26 Aug 1996, Harold Brashears wrote:

> Date: Mon, 26 AUG 1996 17:46:57 GMT 
> From: Harold Brashears <brshears@whale.st.usm.edu>
> Newgroups: alt.energy.renewable, alt.save.the.earth,
>     alt.sustainable.agriculture, talk.environment, sci.environment,
>     sci.energy, bionet.agroforestry
> Subject: Re: Human vs. natural influences on the environment 
[severe deletia...]
> tomgray <tomgray@igc.apc.org> wrote for all to see:
> 
> >There are some very
> >sophisticated (actually sophistical is more accurate) arguments about
> >which this will not hurt and everything will be cool, but so far, they
> >appear to hold quite a bit less water than the models.
> 
> "hold water"?  I don't mind the models.  Were it not for mathematical
> models, I would not have my current job, for sure.  What I essentially
> request is a model which successfully predicts today's climate from
> input prior to today.  Here "today" is not intended as a 24 hour
> event, incidentally.
> 
> I have no doubt that we want to minimize CO2 in the atmosphere, and
> further no doubt that wind will be a competitive technology (though I
> would not want to live next to a wind farm).  But the more accurate
> projections we are beginning to see do not persuade me we need any
> kind of emergency approach to the problem.

Exactly - finally a voice of some reason which would seem to have good 
reason to know what he's talking about.  

By the way, can the current models take existing data from the past and 
predict current trends??  I suspect not but I'm curious.  

> Regards, Harold
> ------
> "By September 1979, all important life in the sea was extinct. 
> Large areas of coastline had to be evacuated...  A pretty grim 
> scenario. Unfortunately were a long way into it already...based 
> on projections of trends already appearing..."
>    - Paul Ehrilich, Environmental Handbook, 1970, pp 174

Good prediction!!!  Help me out here, but I think it may have been wrong, 
however. <G>

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        *        David Beorn, david.beorn@pobox.com (internet)        *
        *        Virginia FREENET                                     *
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