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A point about all of this that James Burke makes in his film 'After
the Warming' [which is a very good film to have students view and
evaluate] IS that virtually everyone agrees that continued increases
in the levels of greenhouse gasses will eventually effect the climate.
We can argue about by how much and how soon, but his point (well
taken IMO) is that why take the risk?
We insure ourselves from lots
of other hazards so why not take some out some insurance concerning
global warming by cutting back on green-house emissions as soon as
possible.
The film describes a Dutch plan from around 1989 that could
be a model for doing so. Other salient points of the film describe
how the dilution of salt in the North Atlantic (by the escape of an
ice age lake in Canada) caused an 8-10 degree drop in the space of
only 100 years--point being that very large temperature swings CAN
happen very quickly. It is the effects of the oceans vis-a-vis global
temperatures that are not well understood, but under SOME models can
lead to cascading effects that could cause very rapid increases in
temperature. Once again a central point here is that reducing carbon
emissions NOW can't hurt but not doing so COULD be disasterous!