Agree with you that climate changes are a natural phenomenon. An example of that was the rise of my country (Panama) out of the sea a couple of millions years ago which is thought to have changed sea currents dramatically and brought about what we know as the ice ages. On that subject take a look at "Children of the Ice Age", another interesting book about the impact of climate on humans.

On the other hand, don't discount without additional analysis the possibility that some pressure points may exist where man's influence may have an outsize impact. In William Calvin's book read the chapter "How a little warming can bring about a big cooling".

It is hard to be truly objective about these subjects and avoid political or religious zeal.

Alex



>>I did not mean to get bogged down on whether humans influence weather or not, only to recommend an interesting book.
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>>In fact, its author does not disagree with you at all. He suggests the biggest factor in weather oscillations are changes in sea currents (think of El Nino but on a much larger scale). What he does say is that the ice core evidence suggests that climate has done great flip-flops with breathtaking speed every few thousand years with major impact on humans.
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>Yeah, it's a quagmire, ain't it?<g> It sounds like he agrees with me totally. He is saying the changes are a natural phenomenom, which is what I am saying. Here's a copy of the prologue from Michale Crichton's "Jurassic Park" that I think says what I feel, much better than I can. Charleton Heston called in to the Rush Limbaugh program about 15 years ago and read it. How can you debate with Moses?
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>You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and
> the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis
>for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.