Geologic Journey, the Great Lakes

[ben_meyers]

I’m an agnostic when it comes to human caused global warming. I don’t deny that the earth may be going through an interglacial warming period, but I’m not convinced that humans have much to do with it, or can do much about it. My daughter is a big fan of Al Gore and his movie, a true believer as it were. Here is the problem. This morning my granddaughter (my daughters 12 year old) and I watched “Geologic Journey, the Great Lakes” on the Science Channel. At one point in the program the “guy” was talking to a Native American gal. They are standing on a beach next to one of the Great Lakes close to a large cedar tree root system. The “guy” says isn’t it amazing that this spot was under 50 feet of ice 15000 years ago and then 30 to 50 feet down from here, where its now under water, was a large cedar forest that was drowned 8500 years ago. Of course my 12 year old granddaughter looks at me and asks “Grampa that man is saying that all this weather change is normal, and mommy doesn’t understand.” I tend to agree with the grandkid, but that’s going to cause problems with the daughter. My question is who has the right answer? How did the glaciers form and what caused them to recede before humans had any impact? What can we do to change or stop nature from doing what it always has done? I haven’t seen Gores movie, does it have the answers?

[Jackpine Radical]

1. See the movie.

It'll put a lot of that in a larger perspective for you. He shows the relative magnitude of all these various changes across the millenia.

[proud patriot]

2. There's a graph of the Temp on earth

that goes back 100,000's of years back .

there have been warming and cooling trends throughout
this period . We are in the highest temps ever ,
and if the trend continues one must deduce the global
climate change will lead to the largest "Ice Age" on
the graph presented in "an Inconvenient Truth".

Truly Inconvenient and scary ..

The question of man made influence over this cycle
is apparent when you see the cycle over a period
of 100,000s of years .

[ben_meyers]

3. Now that is exactly what I need

Can you provide a link to that?

[Larkspur]

4. Here's a link

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

This is to the "Inconvenient Truth" web site.

[bananas]

5. wikipedia has some good charts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

[bananas]

6. lots of good charts here

browse around this site - start here:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Temperature_Gallery

[proud patriot]

7. I will look for it on the web, as I have it in a book

but it's most likely at the Inconvenient Truth website
posted above .

[ben_meyers]

8. Thanks for the links

Didn’t mean to post and run. I have been following your links to other links to other links for hours. Let me just say that been treated like crap on some other sites for asking the same basic thing as I did here. I’ve been called a “warming denier”, a RW disrupter, a troll, a “fundie?” and many other things. At least here you guys have tried to help!
On her next visit this week my granddaughter is going to bring Gores movie and we will watch it together. At least her mom hasn’t banned her from seeing grandpa yet!