Soundings (2/19/08)
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Visiting Rotarians: Ann Jones
Guests: Ruby Smith, Curt's brother, Don Easterbrook
Announcements:
Lance announced an upcoming Rotary fellowship event for 7pm May 17th. First, 7pm dinner at Bayou on the Bay, then go the 9pm MBT's showing of "The Male Intellect: Oxymoron?" - a one man show. $40/person.
The Board will meet after lunch to vote on new members (Dan Pike, Steve Beringer, Mary Humphries).
Orphalee worked yesterday!
John Templeton'sparadigm shift: He stopped at Mount Baker Winery and really liked the wines!
Matt Rose went to Hawaii and had a swell fishing trip;
Stew Ellison thanks to Chris Palmerton for organizing a fundraiser event for B&G Club, and thanks Lesa for the BBQ.
Sergeant at Arms by Ron Hardesty
Ron Hardesty limiting fines to $2?; Stew, wearers of Rotary pins, current events trivia.
Program
Don Easterbrook is a professor of geology at WWU, conducts extensive research on global warming. Currently there are two common schools of thought on the subject:
1) Either sever global warming is predicted (Gore et al.); or
2) It is a complete hoax.
But truth is actually somewhere between. Don showed slides of "before and after" satellite photos of coastlines around the world based on Gore's predictions of rising sea levels caused by artic ice melts. According to Don, these ideas are inflamitory and do not reflect current scientific data. For example, Antartic water is getting warmer but the central icecap itself is getting colder. Don claims that warming is occurring due to normal, predictable warming and cooling trends, but not caused by CO2. Greenland temperatures have paralleled global temps up and down historically. So, global warming is real, but it didn't start with CO2 rise; they just currently are in phase with one another. Glaciers are good monitors that we can utilize to measure climate temperatures far back in time. 30 -year cycles are typical.
IPCC (Intergovernmental panel on climate change) predicts a 3-10 degree rise by 2100. Don predicts a 1 degree rise. We still need to cut emissions for other reasons, but this will not affect temperatures. The real "human survival" problem is population growth.
Respectfully submitted,
Stowe Talbot