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The area of floating ice in the Arctic has shrunk more than in any summer since satellite tracking began in 1979, and it has reached that record point a month before the annual ice pullback typically peaks, experts said.
The cause is probably a mix of natural fluctuations, like unusually sunny conditions in June and July, and long-term warming from heat-trapping greenhouse gases and sooty particles accumulating in the air, according to several scientists.
No, I think most agree the planet is warming. Just if the warming is primarily caused by humans is the point up for debate still.
Originally posted by Inannamute
While I understand that when it comes to global warming, there are many people that believe that this is a non-existent phenomena,
Originally posted by Inannamute
The people that bother me are the ones that decide that either (a) global warming is completely a hoax or a myth or (b) it may be happening, but we're either not doing anything, or there's no point in acting in ways which are less damaging to our environment..
We don't know anything for sure, we can't get everyone to agree. But what's it going to hurt for us to act less like jackasses to our planet?
Originally posted by Inannamute
While I understand that when it comes to global warming, there are many people that believe that this is a non-existant phenomena,
or that the freak weather conditions seen around the globe are just that, freak conditions without rhyme or reason, to me, it's becoming increasingly obvious that each new report is a nail in the coffin of our planet.
"Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week's scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B'nai Brith.
A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves."
So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important.
DoD News Briefing
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen
Regardless of whether it is caused by the 6.5 billion of us, or a natural part of the earth's cycle, can anybody really deny, when you read about things like this, or see everything that is happening, cumulatively, that our planet is changing, rapidly, and not necessarily for the better?.
www.nytimes.com
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