No subject

observed that there has been a cold period from 1690 to 1850, when the
glaciers were advancing.
With various methods used by historians, he deduced that the climate
was much warmer than it is now from 650 to 1100, which explains the
discovery of Greenland (which may have been green in the south) by the
Icelanders (which were descendants of the Norse who had discovered and
settled Iceland in the 9th or 10th century). It means that one could
sail in summer from Iceland to Greenland without being bothered by
icebergs.
Of course, one cannot explain this warm period by the pollution
created by the industry.

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On the Internet, I have read that in the 11th and 12th centuries the
increase of level of the sea had bothered the Dutch, who had problems
with their polders, which I read had been set up by the Romans in the
5th century. The page I read also mentioned that the storms eroded a
lot the islands on the shore of The Netherlands.

In France, there was a time when the Atlantic Ocean arrived in Niort.
In the second part of the 13th century the king of France Louis IX
(known as Saint Louis) left for the crusades from Aigues-Mortes, which
for many centuries has stopped being a harbour (on the Mediterranean
Sea).
It means that the level of the sea must have been at some time five to
ten meters above what it is now.

In the mid 1960s, Le Roy Ladurie suggested that the level of activity
of the sun must be the explanation of such variations, but the records
are not precise enough to show a periodicity.

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In december 1984, I spoke at a mathematical conference in Nice,
France, and there was a group of meteorologists who participated in
the conference. The term global warming was not used then, and the
fashionable subject was "nuclear winter": the argument was that a
nuclear war would send a lot of dust in the atmosphere, which will
stop the warming from the sun, and a new ice age would begin.
One day at lunch time, I was sitting at a table of meteorologists, and
I listened to what they said. One of them said that it was not serious
to write proposals on the nuclear winter, since one had no ideas about
the winds in the upper atmosphere (supposed to spread the dust
everywhere), and another one answered something like "yes, but there
is a lot of money to grasp".

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In most large enough groups, one finds honest people, and some not so
honest people, and probably some frankly dishonest people.

It is a well known fact that journalist must select the information
which they transmit, since there is an overwhelming amount of it, and
it is well known that the way they select which information to
transmit and how to present it depends upon their political
orientation or that of their employer.

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The facts which seem clear is that glaciers melt. I have not seen by
myself the desertification of Africa, but there are enough pictures
which show it. The monsoon used to be an amazing meteorological event
which repeated every year like a clock, and it has changed so much in
recent years that some regions of India slowly become deserts.

Negating global warming then looks sheer nonsense to me.

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Is pollution the only reason for global warming? I do not think so,
because of what Le Roy Ladurie wrote, but from what we understand
about chemistry, pollution plays a quite important role in it.

Why some people want to defend the "right" of the industry to pollute
the world looks strange to me, since it slowly (or not so slowly)
kills millions of people: obviously, I would not expect to see such a
position defended on a Buddhist group, but maybe no one really
defended such a position here!

Luc Tartar (French mathematician)

-- 
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends
on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
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"L'amour des parents va à leurs enfants, mais l'amour des enfants va à
leurs enfants." Talmud de Babylone
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"Peggio è l'invidia dell'amico che l'insidia del nemico." proverbio Italiano