It's the Sun, stupid!

[darrelx]

More recent observations indicate that Mars' south pole is continuing to melt. "It's evaporating right now at a prodigious rate," says Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). The pits in the ice are growing by about 3 meters per year. Malin states that conditions on Mars are not currently conductive to the

Comments

[martes]

I don't think any of us would have had fun living 600 years ago. Life was ugly, brutal and short then. There were also a lot less people, and more room to move somewhere else when land became incabable of supporting life.

The earth's climite has varied wildly during the billions of years it's been around. During the time of dinosaurs most of North America was under water. There's also been instances where 90% of the earth's species died off, and we're still not sure why. We simply do not know enough to predict what will happen.

Worse case scenario-- look at Venus. Nearly the same size as Earth, but hot enough on the surface to melt lead. Massive greenhouse from carbon dioxide. We're not sure how it ended up that way, when it's Earth's twin in size. If we don't know how it got that way, how can we say that the same thing won't happen to Earth if something goes wrong? Mars is maybe half our size and a cold desert without enough atmosphere to warm the planet enough to have liquid water. But in the past it used to have flowing water. What happened? We don't know.

Since we don't know the cause and effect of a lot of these things, it's not logical to change the atmospheric status quo and just hope nothing bad happens.

And every side can always dig out experts to support their POV. I'm sure if someone looked hard enough they could find a flat or hollow-earth supporting scientist.

But then again, all our current leaders and most of us will be dead in 60 years, so what difference does it make in the end, since none of us will be around? We might as well enjoy ourselves now, and not care what will happen 100 or 200 years down the road.

[esprix]

Since there's a sizable amount of scientific evidence that global warming is at the very least something that future generations will have to worry about, do you really think it's appropriate to just say, "Never mind, we'll be dead and gone, let *them* figure it out?"

[martes]

I was being sarcastic/ironic.

[esprix]

Ah, well, never mind, then. :)