Blueberry Pie is the first book in the series of books that was inspired by my brother-in-law John. It all started as a joke he played on my two girl's when they were on vacation.The entire series will grow and mature in content and writing style and will encourage your child to keep reading as they grow and mature in their own reading abilities. Parents will also enjoy reading the books to their younger children until they are ready to read themselves. New characters are introduced throughout the series while the main characters stay the same so the child can enjoy reading about the adventures of their new friends....Blueberry is a sweet bear who gets into some serious trouble. The book goes on to describe her heroing experience as her friends rally together to save her.Come along on the adventure and start your journey with Blueberry and her friends.

FIRE, ICE AND PARADISE

By H. Leighton Steward

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 H. Leighton Steward
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-8379-0

Contents

FORWARD....................................................................viiPREFACE....................................................................xiINTRODUCTION...............................................................xviiChapter One PARADISE IN PERSPECTIVE........................................1Chapter Two THE LIBRARY IS OPEN!...........................................9Chapter Three CLIMATE DRIVERS..............................................13Chapter Four CLIMATE INDICATORS............................................65Chapter Five EXPANDING ON THE GEOLOGIC PERIODS.............................79Chapter Six MORE ON THE GREENHOUSE.........................................97Chapter Seven GENERALIZATIONS AND SCENARIO DISCUSSIONS.....................101Chapter Eight THE FUTURE...................................................105Chapter Nine CONCLUSION AND AUTHOR'S OPINIONS..............................109Chapter Ten POPULAR MYTHS OR GROSS EXAGGERATIONS...........................119RECOMMENDED READINGS.......................................................129ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...........................................................133GLOSSARY...................................................................137BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................145INDEX......................................................................153

Chapter One

PARADISE IN PERSPECTIVE

Is today's moderately warm, calm, and relatively moist climate typical of Earth's historical climate? Not unless you define recent as only the last 10,000 years of the 4.6 billion years of Earth's existence. We are living in an occasional and brief flicker of comfortable, nourishing, and relatively stable climate. In researching the extremes of Earth's climate history, I realized how fortunate we are to be living at this particular time.

In writing about the history of Earth's climate and the many environments that have existed over the past 4.6 billion years, the title Fire, Ice and Paradise seemed to encompass the entire spectrum of our past. For the first few hundred million years, Earth was awash in the fire of molten material that covered its surface caused by the accumulation of the debris from space that formed our planet, plus the ensuing generation of tremendous heat from the constant impacts as these smaller bodies rained down at tens of thousands of miles per hour.

As Earth cooled, the surface became hospitable enough to harbor a very primitive life, a type of bacteria that can grow in very hot water. Nearly four billion years later, evidence on all of the continents indicates that Earth had glaciers and probably sea ice over most of its surface. Thus, the period, from about 850 million to 650 million years ago frequently has been referred to as the "Snowball Earth" time. Whether the planet was ever completely covered with ice has not been unequivocally proven but this was certainly a time of a vast amount of ice. There is evidence that a significant glaciation occurred as early as around 2.2 billion years ago. So Earth had, by 600 million years ago, certainly experienced fire and ice.

Everybody has his or her own idea of "paradise", but I think you will see that, certainly for humankind, this current climate and overall environment are as good as, if not better than, at any other time in Earth's history. No one would want to lose such an environment so let us try to understand the factors that have gotten our planet to this particular state and understand what we might be able to do or not do to try to preserve this paradise.

There were billions of years when humans could not have survived at all, either because of the climate or the critters. There were other periods when, had our species been present, people might have been able to survive, but it would have been in extreme discomfort. Today, the climate is such that people can survive to the ends of the Earth and comfortably thrive on most of the planet's landmasses. There are Eskimo (Inuit) people in the Artic, people living in the latitudes of four seasons, those existing in perpetually warm zones of the low latitudes, and even desert dwellers.

Since modern "man" has inhabited Earth, the global climate has been colder for most of that time. Many of our ancestors of more than 10,000 years ago lived in harsh glacial conditions for 90 percent of the time. I will review other intervals of time so you can see how our paradise compares. Figure 4, page 4, illustrates the time in Earth's history when the temperature, C[O.sub.2] and oxygen levels were generally higher or lower than the levels of today. It also indicates the glacial periods, times of vast desert deposits, sea levels, approximate locations of the continents and times of large extraterrestrial impacts. The text in Chapter Five will mention some of the dominant life forms.

Many of us would consider a Hawaiian type of climate as the very definition of paradise. It certainly is, but as you compare climates from most of Earth's multi-billion-year history, I think you will agree that nearly all of Earth's surface today, with the exception of the two poles and a few deserts, basks in a relative paradise. Today's global climate provides most of us with all the things we need to nurture ourselves, to flourish, and to prosper. Sure, we can have freezing-cold days and very windy days, but the annual averages are really quite nice. A large percentage of the surface waters of the planet's oceans are at a temperature that allows us to enjoy them in comfort and relative safety. We can even submerge ourselves in the spectacular real life aquariums using scuba devices.

Starting about 12,000 years ago and going back in Earth's history for the previous 85,000 to 90,000 years, this comfort zone would have been much narrower and closer to the equator, probably south from mid-Mexico latitudes. If our ancestors had had sailing ships, the higher average wind velocities of those cold times, with the accompanying higher waves, might have been fun for the hardiest sailors but the amateurs would have found it tough going and probably stayed on land.

Going back farther in time, for nearly a million years, these 85,000 to 90,000 years of cold, windy weather persisted for all but a handful of briefer 10,000 to 15,000 year interglacial intervals of relative warmth and calm. On land, the much drier climate accompanying these cold intervals would have caused all but a small percentage of a growing population to be underfed and undernourished.

Some say warmer climates bring on more diseases. Possibly, but tell that to the historians who have tracked the "Little Ice Age" that lasted from about 1350 A.D. to about 1850 A.D. During this 500 year period there was plenty of disease, famine and death, accompanied by hangings or burnings of the "witches" who supposedly brought on these cold times. Huddling humanity together in cold, poorly ventilated spaces with inadequate nourishment created a disease-distributing environment. This was a time when Earth's global temperature averaged only about two degrees Celsius cooler than today!

By contrast, the "Medieval Warm Period" of 1,000 years ago and the "Roman Warm Period" of 2,000 years ago saw humanity flourish and increase in population and well-being. As you will see, this Little Ice Age was nothing but a short interlude in the overall global warmth man has enjoyed for the last 10,000...