Too bad you feel that way, Leo. I guess for those of us in our old age, treating climate change as a joke is something we can afford to do because we will not be here to reap the bitter consequences of the great goodies from the industrial life style that we have enjoyed. Our children and grandchildren will not be so lucky.

The current cold weather is not a function of global climate “change” or “warming.” Meterologists say that the current cold wave has to do with a change in wind currents over the North Pole regions which has diverted the Jet Stream from its normal winter path and allowed it to dip south, bringing artic air.

Now, I don’t know about the situation in Europe. As you know, one global warming scenario does call for the collapse of the warming effects of the Gulf Stream, as it sinks lower into the Atlantic due to the cold fresh water pouring out fromt he melting ice cap.

Joey I do not consider climate change to be a joke. I simply say that no matter what actions we take the earth will get warmer. The goal of the green house emmissions reduction is to slow down the change, not stop it. We will do our proginy an injustice if we waste time trying to stop warming instead of adapting to it.

Leo, Maybe we can agree if we use the word “pollution.” The consequences of industrialization have resulted in world-wide pollution which is playing a role in climate change and environmental destruction. Cleaning up the oceans will save species and may increase their ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

As for learning to live with global warming. It is a matter, literally, of degrees. Not all countries are being damaged at the same pace.
Evaporating glaciers are immediately threatening the fresh water supply of such countries as India and Bolivia. Global warming is a growing concern in my state because of the impact on the snowpack vital to the Rocky Mountain watershed which feeds the Colorado River, which in turn provides water to Arizona and California. These are not minor concerns.

Warming climate does not mean more rain in all parts of the world. One of the most important agreements to come out of Cophenhagen involved international measures to begin to reforest the Tropical Forests, the earth’s lungs. This is a remedial measure and one I think worthwhile. this reforestation is more a regeneration of the Forest as opposed to tree farmng or attempting to replace the diversity of forests with one or two tree species.

I would agree that we do not know enough about all the causes of global warming to be able to design measures which would be able to
reduce warming with absolute confidence. That is why I favor reducing pollution, which we can do, and, looking at measures which may help because they have already shown some success; i.e., reforestation in the Tropical Forests of the world.

This is where I think Peace Corps experiences would be invaluable if the agency had protected the record of all kinds of attempts to intervene in the environment. We would have had a real record from which to learn. We don’t have that record. But, we all have the experience of looking at problems which seem insurmountable and juming in, anyway.