Comments on: The hand of Franklin reaching http://mendicantbug.com/2007/09/21/the-hand-of-franklin-reaching/ Wanderings into computational linguistics, science, social media and life... Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:51:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Melinda Weathers http://mendicantbug.com/2007/09/21/the-hand-of-franklin-reaching/#comment-96 Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:25:08 +0000 http://mendicantbug.com/?p=149#comment-96 Yay for good news!

]]> By: Jason Adams http://mendicantbug.com/2007/09/21/the-hand-of-franklin-reaching/#comment-95 Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:12:13 +0000 http://mendicantbug.com/?p=149#comment-95 No I didn’t catch that, and scary stuff indeed. If there’s a 30 degree rise by 2100, we’re gonna be living in caves south of quebec and all that land in antarctica will finally be open to farming! The good news is that most people will be dead by then in the wars set off by the collapse of the world oil economy.

]]> By: Melinda Weathers http://mendicantbug.com/2007/09/21/the-hand-of-franklin-reaching/#comment-94 Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:33:55 +0000 http://mendicantbug.com/?p=149#comment-94 Did you watch the PBS Nova special on Global Dimming? I was going to write about it on my blog, but it’s easier to just post comments on yours :)

The essence of it is that all the visible pollution from planes and cars and factories and such is changing the structure of the clouds such that they are more reflective. As a result, there is noticeably less sunlight getting through to us now than there was in the past. But wouldn’t this cause Global Cooling not Global Warming? Yes, the show claims, it is causing Global Cooling. And that means that the actual problem of Global Warming is far worse than we think. And as we continue to reduce the visible pollution, we decrease Global Dimming, and the effects of Global Warming could be more severe than predicted.

Anyway, scary stuff. One of the few times I’ve been comforted by the thought “Well, hey, I’ll be dead!” :) One of the show’s predictions was a 30 degree temperature rise by 2100. Yikes!!!!

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