Here in
Western Maine we have had a warm December, a cold but snow-less January, a
February with snow storms two to three time a week and finally a March with
temps fluctuating from forty to zero with a constant, unrelenting wind blowing
twenty and gusting up to fifty miles-per-hour some days.
Now, unlike
the Republican Congress, I am smart enough to know you can’t call climate
change from a daily weather phenomenon at some particular location on a
particular day. Local weather and world
climate are two different assessments.
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In my
seventy-plus years I have seen years of high snow and low snow; high
temperatures and low temperatures, of drought and flood. Variations in weather conditions from year to
year is a normal phenomenon.
The climate
of the earth constantly changes, and has done so since the formation of the
earth and solar system. Most climate
changes occur over thousands of years; but occasionally a catastrophic climate
change has occurs over a short period due to volcano eruptions or asteroid
collisions.
The thing we
are experiencing now is rapid catastrophic climate change caused by the depletion
of the ozone layer due to increased levels of CO-2 and other man made substances
that have been pumped into the atmosphere.
Our present dilemma
is caused by pollution, but, of course, the root cause is population
increase. About 1918 the world
population topped one billion; by 1945 two billion; by 1975 we crested four
billion people; by 2000 we were over six billion; and presently we have over
seven billion people population the earth. (We have
increased the world’s population over seven hundred percent in less than one
hundred years)
With the
population increases comes an increase demand for food, water, timber, fuel,
electricity, automobiles etc. which results in more factories and power plants
with the corresponding increase in pollution – and a corresponding increase in
waste byproducts.
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Ninety-six
percent of the world’s climate scientists confirm that we have passed the point
of no return and that man-made pollution of the atmosphere (earth and water)
have finally pushed the earth beyond recovery, and that rapid warming of the earth resulting in accelerated melting of
polar ice caps is causing irreversible rapid
change to our climate – the optimum word being rapid change.
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The other
four percent of scientist that deny climate change, claiming it is a natural
fluctuation, are either graduates of Gerry Falwell University, or are southern
fundamentalist Christians with suspect science credentials, still looking to
justify that the world is six millions old and dinosaurs and man existed at the
same time.
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We can see this change, and we can adjust to it; but, the change is real, it is happening
now, and this is only the beginning.
the Ol'Buzzard
the Ol'Buzzard
I love all those quotations from Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
ReplyDeleteHow large a data point does your 70 years of observation make in the 10,000 years since the glaciers started their retreat?
ReplyDeleteIt's a lot easier to deal with the last 10,000 years of the interglacial period than to go back the hundreds of thousands of years to the interglacial period before this one. One human lifespan is not much time when we are talking about cycles this big.
Then again I didn't get even a mailorder college degree so there is no real reason to pay any attention to what I see.
We listen to a doctor when we are seriously sick; we listen to a lawyer when we need serious legal advice; and we listen to fundamentalist Christians when we need scientific advice?
DeleteO'B
If you can ignore the earth's history and call 200 years of data 'good' in a process that covers hundreds of thousands of years I guess you could go to fundamentalist Christians or Hindus or any faith to get the science that you're looking for.
DeleteThis whole "man has just changed the Earth's climate that forming the Himalayas created millions of years ago" strikes me as hard to swallow.
But then I think the whole genetically modified food thing is a huge experiment & the results will not be apparent for many generations. But people are making money off it just like they are the man made global warming craze.
Because of agricultural irrigation, the Jordan River is now a “fetid ditch”; pilgrims who attempt to bathe at the spot where Jesus is said to have been baptized will develop a rash and, if they swallow the water, will most likely vomit.
ReplyDeleteFrom a NYTimes review of Alan Weisman's most recent book 'Countdown'. Of course you're right, OB.
I've been a member of the VHEMT (Voluntary Human Extinction Movement) for a number of years. They convinced me, but then again, I reproduced just once and am too old to do so again.
ie:
Considering the future world we are creating for future generations, procreation today is like renting rooms in a burning building—renting them to our children no less.