Comments Andrew Glikson has made

  • Reply to Wolverine

    Thank you for your comments, and I agree -- hope, a quality inherent in life, has to be maintained. My own contributions hinge on studies of the history of the atmosphere with reference to climate change, as for example in the paper:
    Milestones in the evolution of the atmosphere with reference to climate change. Australian Journal of Earth Science, 2008, vol. 55 No. 2. If of interest, let me know your E-mail address and I can send it to you as a pdf file, along with other papers and articles.
    Best wishes
    Andrew Glikson
    8-8-08

    Dr Andrew Glikson Earth and paleo-climate research scientist A.N.U., Canberra, A.C.T. Australia geospec@iinet.net.au

    On Is tackling climate change contrary to human nature? posted 1 year, 3 months ago 6 Responses

  • On the roots of denial

    At the roots of climate change denial are world outlooks and attitudes including:

    1.  A fundamental view of nature as a subsidiary of human economy and open ended growth.

    2.  Acceptance of the use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for Carbon products resulting from some 400 million years of evolution.

    3.  Objection to the scientific method, manifested by ad-hominem and conspiracy theories directed toward scientists, science organizations, science journals, the peer review systems.

    4.  Indifference toward biological species, bio-diversity, the fate of large black and brown and yellow populations who would be the first to suffer from desertification and sea level rise.

    And while the evidence for a climate crisis in force, with consequences on a scale analogous to geological mass extinctions, compels Homo "sapiens" to its moment of truth, at the roots of denial is the religion of open ended material growth and, in some instances, fundamentalist acceptance of human-triggered demise, where the 'righteous' (and those who can pay) will be saved.

    Dr Andrew Glikson Earth and paleo-climate research scientist A.N.U., Canberra, A.C.T. Australia geospec@iinet.net.au

    On The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach doesn't understand basic climate science posted 1 year, 3 months ago 4 Responses

  • tragedy of the commons?

    Once the Arctic Sea ice goes, Greenland - an ice-covered island - is next in line, where melting together with the west Antarctic below-sea level ice will raise sea levels by near 14 metres,  flooding fertile agricultural coastal zones, low river valeys and harbour cities world wide. From the recent history of Earth failure of the Atlantic themohaline current and further pole-ward migration of climate zones are likely to follow.

    It is only once atmospheric CO2 levels declined to below about 450 ppm in the late Eocene (about 34 million years ago) that the ice sheets began to grow and lower temperatures allowed small burrowing mammals to emerge out of their holes and evolve into large mammals - including the primates. Current global warming is reversing this trend.

    Emergence of large-scale agricultural cultivation and civilization in the great river valleys about 8000 years ago was allowed by rivers fed by snow melt water, now endangered.

    Species can not recognize their blind spots ... Lemings plunge off cliffs, kangaroos get killed on the highways, while civilization fouls its nest as does the kingfisher.

    only the genus Homo has ever mastered fire, proceeding to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum, split the atom and travel to other planets. Possessed by a conscious fear of death, craving for God-like immortality and omniscience, the species has developed the absurd faculty to simultaneously create and destroy, perpetrate the demise of terrestrial forests, extinguish other species and, lately, erode the very atmospheric conditions that allowed its appearance in the first place.

    The biological rationale that has transformed tribal warriors into button-pushing automatons capable of triggering global climate changes or a nuclear winter remains inexplicable.

    The rest is details ...

    Dr Andrew Glikson Earth and paleo-climate research scientist A.N.U., Canberra, A.C.T. Australia geospec@iinet.net.au

    On Is tackling climate change contrary to human nature? posted 1 year, 3 months ago 6 Responses