Well, since I have been interested in astronomy since the early seventies, I know that an absolutely huge body of astronomical knowledge has been added since the eighties. Today the consensus is that the Sun is 4.5 billion years old. Exactly how far it has to go before it becomes a red giant is less certain - or more exactly, astronomers are less sure of it - but the general consensus is that we are certainly talking much, much longer than humanity can realistically expect to survive. In short, we don't have to worry about what happens when the Sun becoms a red giant, because we won't be around by that time. Or rather, if we have actually managed to survive that long, chances are that we have learnt to live sensibly in a way that uses up a minimum of resources. Not only that, but if we have survived that long, we will probably know how to look for and move to another planet where we can survive.
Anyway, most astronomers still believe that the Sun is about mid-way through its main sequence existence. But even if the Sun won't actually turn into a red giant for a very long time, it will still get brighter and more energetic long before it takes that final plunge into red gianthood.
This is what Wikipedia says about the coming brightening of the Sun, although other sources claim that a solar brightening has been going on since the Sun was born:
The brightening of the Sun This is what
Wikipedia says about the Sun in general. You may note what it says about the Sun's age:
The Sun's current main sequence age, determined using computer models of stellar evolution and nucleocosmochronology, is thought to be about 4.57 billion years.[28
My point is that since we orbit a life-giving star which, however, is bound to get ever more uncomfortably bright, we shouldn't add greenhouse gases to our atmosphere. It's a bad idea to buy extra heaters for your house if you know that a heat wave is coming. Particularly if you don't know how to turn those heaters off.
13 kronor/liter in Swedish crowns is about $8.50/gallon, which is what I saw it for when I was there two weeks ago.
Exactly. We have to pay a lot of tax for our gas, and the government uses that tax money to, among other things, pay for a lot of public transportation. I'm fine with that. But I'm not trying to tell other countries what to do, and I'm certainly not trying to tell other people how much money they should have to pay for gas in their own countries. Bottom line, that's none of my business. More precisely, it's not up to me to decide. And precisely because I am one of the many Swedes who use public transportation and get by without a car, I don't feel qualified to discuss what the price of gas should be.
Also, for the record, even though I don't have a car I'm no Ms. Goody Two Shoes when it comes to being environment friendly. I waste and live frivolously like most people do. I don't have the right to tell others how they should live. All I'm saying that every last one of us is dependent on the Earth for our survival, and what we do to the Earth has consequences, and I hope that everyone will be interested in the question of how we treat our world.
Ann
