JPF Home Page Forums Who is minding the store?

Well, I reckon neither of us are going to change the other's mind, Bill, so I'll lay off.

I can't say the discussion has been worthless to me though because your posts and Doug's have made me realize what the biggest challenges will be to folks who want to convince others that mankind can have an effect on global warming:

(1) Countering the belief that we are too insignificant to have an effect

(2) Countering the belief that the climate has been changing in the absence of man so it must not be us.

Until the issues can be addressed, no one is gonna convince anyone of anything.

In my own view, I think we tend to underestimate the effect that we can have on the world. Thomas Jefferson thought that it would take 100 generations to settle the west. It took four.

The Grand Banks (a huge area of the western Atlantic) have been essentially depleted of cod within just a few generations.

There are plenty of other examples that man can be a strong agent of change to large systems.

As far as point (2) goes, this will be a tough one. It is a fallacious argument to state that just because something has always changed, we can't be affecting it. However, proving it in such a complicated system that changes over very long periods of time is difficult. I believe folks have done so to the satisfaction of scientists but have failed to deliver the message convincingly to everyone else.

I think they have their work cut out for them......

Scott