Global Warming article in SA

Gary C Gibson. - 01:05pm Feb 16, 2005 EDT (#15 of 15)
The physical Universe exists within the will of God. At the largest and smallest scales it's parameters are unknowable except as revealed by Non-Contingent Being.. The scalable universe is rational.


'Did Humans Stop an Ice Age?' is the cover question.

The March 2005 Scientific American has an interesting article on page 48+ on the history and causation factors of global warming. The author; William F. Ruddiman, has provided a new theory that human activities are the essential catalytic element in the present global warming period beginning with the rise of farming some 8,000 years ago.

There are three primary causes of alterity of the Earths temperature variability over time... They are orbital cycles at periods of 22,000 years, 41,000 years and 100,000 years. The amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface in a particular area can change by as much as 10%.

Glacial and interglacial periods over time have a fair periodicity that was changed beginning 8,000 years ago when greenhouse gases were released anomalously as a consequence of human agricultural practices.

The two primary greenhouse gases are methane and carbon dioxide according to the article. Methane production could change as a consequence of the wetlands and marsh grass that increase in warmer times, yet rice farming and other agriculture techniques also can increase methane production.

According to the theory in the article, the world should have reached the interglacial high point of carbon dioxide parts per million 8000 years ago and no increased further; the world should have gone toward another ice age.

Present industrialization emissions have only increased the concentration of greenhouse gases to higher and higher levels as the world continues to increase its atmospheric temperature.

It is a bold theory and published in a timely way...yek the administration's people perhaps can't read that sort of article and make any environmental inferences toward public policy changes toward eco-conservatism.