[geeks] Global Warming causes...

[der Mouse]

> Also, there are other things to consider: coal mining and use
> generates large amounts of radioactive nuclear material, much of
> which is pumped into the atmosphere or captured.

Generates?  Or merely dredges out of the ground and brings up into the
surface ecosystem?

> Of course, since almost none of the general public even knows coal is
> radioactive...

This means little; most of the general public - at least in North
America - is perfectly willing to sign petitions to ban dihydrogen
monoxide.

It also borders on meaningless to say that coal is radioactive; so is
damn near everything else.  It's the kind and comparative quantity of
radioactivity that are interesting.

>> Since we evolved to fit the current climate, more or less, pretty
>> much anywhere significantly different from what we've got is likely
>> to be uncomfortable for humans.

> Um, no.

> Humans have evolved during long time periods of rather massive
> change, and we currently occupy huge temperature differentials.

Huge only with respect to us.  If, say, the mean surface temperature of
our planet were to rise to 600, we'd be hard put to deal.  (So would a
lot of the rest of the life on the planet - but there's some that
wouldn't even notice, and a lot more that could adapt quickly enough to
handle it fine.)

And that's a fairly mild increase.  When I was talking about the
climate taking off into otherwise remote corners of the state space, I
was talking about things like a mean surface temperature above 1000, or
mean annual rainfall that makes Death Valley look like an oasis, or
atmospheric oxygen dropping to pre-plant-life levels.  (Are those
possible?  I don't know.  I'm definitely not sure they're impossible.
Since it's a question that can be answered definitely in only one
direction, I hope we never find out.)

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