Fossil fuel warming of the earth, another study

San Francisco Chronicle/Associated Press, 3/7/13. "Global warming spike called unprecedented."

A new study looking at 11,000 years of climate readings shows the world in the middle of a dramatic U-turn, lurching from near-record cooling to a heat spike.

We are not listening, but we will find solutions

No earth warming here today

Research released Thursday in the journal Science uses fossils of tiny marine organisms to reconstruct global temperatures back to the end of the last ice age. It shows how the globe for several thousands of years was cooling until an unprecedented reversal in the 20th century.   

Scientists say it is further evidence that modern-day global warming isn't natural, but the result of rising carbon dioxide emissions that have rapidly grown since the Industrial Revolution began roughly 250 years ago.

....   "In 100 years, we've gone from the cold end of the spectrum to the warm end of the spectrum," Marcott said. "We've never seen something this rapid. Even in the ice age, the global temperature never changed this quickly."  Read article.

Related - Scientific American, 3/11/09, John Rennie, "Cleaning up the dirtiest fossil fuel: One company's coal fix."  "In most discussions of energy and climate, coal figures prominently as one of the villains. Burning coal is responsible for more than a third of all energy-related U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and 80 percent of those from electricity production. It is also one of the largest contributors of air pollution, acid rain and even toxic environmental mercury. But because coal is so inexpensive and plentiful—at the current rate of domestic demand, the U.S. has enough coal to last for 250 years—nations find it hard to abandon the fuel without risking economic ruin."

Posted by Kathy Meeh