On 11/6/2010 10:51 AM, Val Kraut wrote:

There are many who believe that global warming - no matter what the cause -

I'm pretty sure that our species is the cause, and that the abnormally
long solar storm minimum we had in the last 11 year sunspot cycle
disguised that reality. Now that things are getting back to normal on
the Sun, the next decade should give pretty firm proof if that's the case.
The thing is of course that all the nations that border the arctic
icepack are gleefully looking forward to it thawing so they can exploit
the mineral resources under it and use the open waters as the
realization of the "northwest passage" to move things by ship faster
around the northern hemisphere, no matter if global warming wreaks havoc
down near the equator, raises sea levels worldwide, and increases the
number of severe yearly storms.
If it does get that bad, then Bangladesh is about the last place you
would want to live, as its low average elevation over sea level already
makes it highly susceptible to tropical storms, and rising sea levels
plus more severe storms are going to make it damn near uninhabitable.
In the sci-fi series "Babylon 5", they once showed Earth in the future
from orbit, with around 1/4 of the total land area of the planet
centered on the equator being a vast series of deserts.
That's a pretty spooky thing to think about.
Last time something like that occurred was during the Permian
extinction, known as "Great Dying" because around 90% of all living
species went extinct, including the vast majority of our earliest
ancestors, the mammal-like reptiles.

Pat