Letters to the Editors, July 2005

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Responses to March's cover story, "How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?" by William F. Ruddiman, were outnumbered only by a multitude of reader questions, observations and alternative theories addressed to "Misconceptions about the Big Bang," by Charles H. Lineweaver and Tamara M. Davis. Although many felt this article went where none had gone before in clearing up several cosmological misconceptions, the answers left one reader a tad disappointed in the possibilities an expanding universe might have afforded her interior space. Marianne Vespry of Hamilton, Ontario, writes: "As I read this article, I began to hope that my condominium closets might be getting bigger with the expansion of the universe, so that by summer there would be room for the new outfits I will undoubtedly buy. But no, I learned that the universe grows larger without expanding either Planet Earth or my closets." We trust the following will expand your knowledge--the constraints of cosmology and earthly real estate notwithstanding.

8,000 Years of Human Warmth
In "How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?" William F. Ruddiman suggests that carbon dioxide (CO₂) released as our ancestors cleared forests to plant crops over the past 8,000 years prevented the onset of the next ice age.

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Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American