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Mars Orbiter Sees Changes
pin_gween writes "The long-lived Mars Global Surveyor (8 yrs and flying) has enabled scientists to see changes in the surface of Mars. From the article: 'New gullies that did not exist in mid-2002 have appeared on a Martian sand dune. New impact craters formed since the 1970s suggest changes to age-estimating models. And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.' The probe's primary mission ended in 2001 and scientists are hopeful the orbiter's life can be extended for another 5 -10 years."
...the orbiter shows that the climate on Mars is heating up at the same rate as Earth's?
NO, NO, NO - just think about the percentage increase in cars on Mars in the last few years! :-)
Okay so it's possible that global warming isn't entirely, if at all mans fault. We don't have all the data necessary to say without a doubt that one model is correct and another is wrong. There are still a lot of hypothesis that could be correct. Including some theories that doesn't lay all the blame at just one source.
It is important to not thought that this is data runs just THREE YEARS. This could be a fluke, or it could be mars warming. Again it just the last THREE YEARS. This is by no means a smoking gun.
Finally, the Kyoto Protocol. First of all, lets go with the why. We don't know why the climate is warming up. We have various ideas, but like I said before the data isn't there to concretely state that one of them is correct. What we do know is that it the Earth is heating up and it could cause us some problems.
That being said taking some reasonable steps to try to reduce what ever effects we might be having on the environment wouldn't be a bad idea.
Also it wouldn't have been all that hard to meet the kyoto protocols. The technology is already here for the most part. The biggest thing would have been speeding our assets more wisely. For example improving public transit, and not rolling back EPA rules. Yes you are correct that developing nations were not asked to reduce as much as americans. However there are some important differences.
Mainly that the average American is producing so much more green house gasses then some family in the Congo burning a wood fire to cock their meals. The average american manages to produce more than even other develop nations. So yeah whatever