From: Monte Davis 

"Geo."  wrote:

> Would have to be one hell of a fire to melt 2 mile thick ice..

No, it wouldn't -- that's the point. All it would (and did) take was more
ice lost by melting each summer than was added by snow each winter.

You have a really good instinct for the qualitative aspects of science,
George -- but you dig your heels in when your first intuitive take is
challenged by the numbers, and sometimes only the numbers capture the 
essence of the situation. We are embarked on an extremely fast warming
...with a still-growing population built up during an especially benign
(=low-variation) period, the last century of it supercharged by lots of
cheap petroleum.

I'd be much less concerned if we'd already passed peak population... and/or
if there were a few spare continents out there with new arable land to be
brought into cultivation... and/or if there were a few more cheap 'n easy
Middle Easts' worth of oil about to come on line. But as things are, we're
going to have to tap-dance while juggling while riding a unicycle to get
through without some potentially very nasty adjustments.



Monte Davis
http://montedavis.livejournal.com

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