Time: Sun Jun 15 20:07:11 1997 by primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA05559; Sun, 15 Jun 1997 20:00:27 -0700 (MST) by usr06.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA11159; Sun, 15 Jun 1997 20:00:14 -0700 (MST) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:58:53 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar] Subject: SLS: The Hamaker Hypothesis (3 of 7) [This text is formatted in Courier 11, non-proportional spacing.] "New Ice Age by 1995?" in The New York Times July 25, 1988 To the Editor: Some climatologists are beginning to see a significant rise in global temperature in the 1980's, and attribute it to a greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide and other gases ("Global Warming Has begun, Expert Tells Senate," front page, June 24). In looking at global temperature averages, however, most climatologists ignore dramatic increases in regional and seasonal differences. While lower latitudes and midlatitude summers are becoming hotter and drier, the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere winters have been getting colder and wetter -- with record cold winters -- during this decade of record global warmth. What could be going on? Since the greenhouse effect magnifies heat radiated back by the earth from the sun's warmth, it will be much more pronounced in the tropics than at the poles, which get little sunlight to magnify. Thus, the temperature differences between the poles and the tropics is increased by the greenhouse effect, magnifying global pressure differences (warm air rises, cold air sinks) and creating higher winds. Indeed, hurricanes and tornadoes have been increasing dramatically in the last 50 years. As the tropical oceans heat up, more of their moisture is evaporated to form clouds. The increasing pole-tropic wind systems move some of these additional clouds toward the poles, resulting in increased winter rainfall, longer and colder winters and the gradual buildup of the polar ice sheets. This phenomenon has come to be widely recognized by climatologists in recent years. What most of them do not recognize is that this process may be the engine that drives the 100,000-year cycle of major ice ages, for which there is no other plausible explanation. Before our species came along, to dig up and burn fossil fuels and create a climate-altering greenhouse effect, nature may have been doing it periodically on its own: as soil minerals are eroded or leached away, the earth's vegetation loses these essential nutrients and dies back significantly. Carbon is meanwhile returned to the atmosphere where it becomes carbon dioxide, creating a greenhouse effect, with all its climatic consequences. The final piece of the puzzle is this: As the glaciers slowly cover large sections of the earth over tens of thousands of years, they grind the rocks in their path into a fine dust. This rock dust is then carried by wind and water over many widespread areas of the globe. Because rocks are composed of minerals, this mixture of dust from many types of rocks remineralizes many of the earth's forests, rejuvenating them. As they thrive and spread, they consume the excess carbon dioxide, and nature's greenhouse effect subsides, shutting off the wind and evaporation engine that built up the glaciers. Though this scenario has been accepted by only a few scientists so far, every element of it is fully supported by the scientific literature. In 1979, Genevieve Woillard, a pollen specialist in France, concluded from detailed studies that the shift from a warm, interglacial climate to ice age conditions at the beginning of the last ice age, some 100,000 years ago, took "less than 20 years." Her observations of the decline of European forests led her to conclude we may be in a similar period of rapid climatic change and only a few years from the start of the next major ice age. By her reckoning, and that of John Hamaker, who developed the theory I've outlined, we may be less than seven years away, and our climate may continue to deteriorate rapidly until life on earth becomes all but unsupportable. We know how to reverse the greenhouse effect: stop clear-cutting the earth's remaining forests, reduce fossil-fuel burning dramatically in favor of non-polluting energy sources, plant billions of acres of new fast-growing trees and remineralize much of the earth's forests with rock dust. There may be time to stop the cycle, if we recognize the problem right away and act quickly. Berkeley, California July 15, 1988 The writer is director of People for a Future. ======================================================================== Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness B.A., Political Science, UCLA; M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine tel: (520) 320-1514: machine; fax: (520) 320-1256: 24-hour/day-night email: [address in tool bar] : using Eudora Pro 3.0.2 on 586 CPU website: http://www.supremelaw.com : visit the Supreme Law Library now ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech, at its best Tucson, Arizona state : state zone, not the federal zone Postal Zone 85719/tdc : USPS delays first class w/o this As agents of the Most High, we came here to establish justice. We shall not leave, until our mission is accomplished and justice reigns eternal. ======================================================================== [This text formatted on-screen in Courier 11, non-proportional spacing.]
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