Homestead mailing list

[Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>]

Rob wrote:

> Popular opinion and the media think that man has the power to change 
> anything, I think the Earth is mightier than any of it's creatures. <Shrug>.
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Isn't it just a coincidence that the amount of carbon in the ground/air, 
on the one hand, and the power output of the sun, on the other just 
happen to interact to make a (usually) nice temperature?  Suppose that 
the earth had suffered many more later catalysms, which retarded the 
development of life, or that land life only flourished on a small 
island..  Then it could just as well have been that the dinosaurs and 
ferns had not lived and fallen in swamps for 200 million years, or only 
on a much smaller scale, in which case their carbon would still be 
mostly in the atmosphere, at the same time that our sun is at its 
present increasing level of output.  Then it would be a whole lot 
hotter.  I don't imagine this proves anything, except that I don't know 
how hot it's "supposed" to be, and probably can't control it.

Bill