Global Warming too?... what next, politics?

I found this blog entry which is relevant to what has been discussed recently, so I decided to bring part of it here and also drop a line to see if "prototypo" might join the conversation:

Critics of Global Warming

prototypo said:
We do know that we have been polluting the air, water and land all around us since the industrial revolution and are continuing to do so at an increasing rate.

I've been trying to deal with this one from the perspective that we are also contributing memebers of the ecosystem that we belong to. In other words, can we separate ourselves from being integral players in the process that brought us into existence? Isn't that arrogant as hell?

But I have to weigh this against what part intelligence and awareness plays in that game, and the only conclusion that I can arrive at is that this enables us to back-off *enough* to keep us from getting culled, (bitchslapped back into line), involuntarily, by nature. I say "enough" with emphasis, because, (just like always), right-winged stubbornness will prevent liberal arrogance from allowing this to go exactly the way that the left would have it go if they got things all their way.

And all was well with the world. I don't mean to imply that anyone in this conversation has the following problem, but the one thing that people making predictions of gloom-n-doom never get when they point out all the potential downfalls that beface man, is that ALL of the anthropic coincidences occur almost exactly between cumulatively runaway tendencies toward certain death.

And yet, given all of the many adverse and inhospitible conditions that constantly and historically hung over our heads... as Morphius would say:

WE ARE STILL HERE!!!


prototypo
We do know that badly polluted areas are difficult to live in (such as Mexico City) or even impossible (such as Prypiat, Ukraine). Should we continue to pollute at such a rate until the science is 100% accurate in its ability to predict the future, or should we reduce our pollution rates?

I don't want to argue against meausures that are designed to improve or prevent such extremes from occurring, but, (as if to support my point about "self-regulating systems"), it has been shown that both wild-life and humans are surviving and proliferating in the dead-zone surrounding Chernobyl, and it has also been established that endangered species thrive better in bombing ranges than they do in nature preserves.

~

Having said that, I'm am also bringing-in part of this recent conversation between Neil and myself:

Neil had said:
As for global warming versus ice ages: Sure, there would have been an ice age, but our CO2 infusion stopped it not-cold! But instead of a nice cancellation leaving tepid temperatures rolling along, global warming overshoots ice ages.

island replied:
That's not normal global warming, it's a description of the runaway effect. Both global warming and glaciation are equally cumulative, so *some* global warming is continually necessary in order to hold off the cumulative runaway effect that is inherent to the exact opposite of what you said below:

Neil had said:
It prevents them from forming by melting ice up North, and then it can get even warmer without the ice to reflect sunlight.

And island replied:
I would agree that we need to back-off, but I'm just as convinced we'll die if we don't continue to efficiently increase entropy. Efficiency is the key here, anthropic selection has it that we will have the technology to take advantage of the next most difficult path of entropic action, at about the same time that we run out of oil. Cleaner, more efficient increases, are the key to long term survival.

Neil' then said...
No, they are not "equally cumulative"! It is not like mixing streams of hot and cold water, but non-linear behavior. That's the whole point. The warming actually prevents the cooling trend from having an effect, by melting enough ice to counter the reflection effect. You are right, it is not "normal" global warming we are having now, because of the huge and rapid increase in CO2 level, not just twiddles of the earth's motion, solar variability etc.

BTW, I don't want to return the earth to it's "pristine state." I and most other responsible environmentalists just want to keep plenty of the earth in such a state for our enjoyment and our and the planet's health, and responsibly use the rest. One thing we could do in the US, is to quit rewarding fecundity. Let's stop robbing childless folks to pay out those $1,000 tax credits for children, even to middle-class families! I can spring for public education, but not both! PS - I don't have a problem with expanded nuclear power as long as we can trust the operators and deal responsibly with waste products.

I unfairly cut Neil off at what I perceive to be his first error since that usually kills the rest of the argument:

No, they are not "equally cumulative"!

And island anwered:
Yes, they are, Neil... If the accelerating tendency toward glaciation isn't offset by increasing global warming, then the snow doesn't thaw out as much as it did the previous year, which causes the ice to reflect more sunlight... Like I said, equally opposing runaway tendiencies are at play here, and your attempts to willfully ignore well-known science don't change that.

~

I fear that I may not have made myself clear enough on my last point and will be misunderstood.

The rest of what Neil said sounds fine to me, except "(ab)normal global warming" WAS necessary until now, in order to head-off the kind of long-term momentum that lies behind a tendency toward a 100,000 year long ice-age.