Snappledagain's Blog

Make For the Hills……Really.

 

That the Earth is warming up is not debated very often anymore. This is pretty widely accepted as fact. Why it is warming seems to be a very contentious issue though and the reason for that is something of a mystery. Perhaps in about forty or fifty years we will be able to look back and assign credit to whoever was correct. Maybe.

 

But who cares why it is happening. Really, we are all aware that toxins in our environment affect human health and there is already a widespread movement toward cleaning up the planet that has been underway for most of a generation (or more) now. We need to remain determined in our efforts to do this and not allow rants about emissions from burning fossil fuels in ‘todays’ news headlines to cause us to lose sight of what is most important.

 

As a species we need to find a more rational argument for undertaking actions such as reducing ‘greenhouse’ gases too. The notion that we can somehow reverse global warming by parking the humvee is delusional, yet this is the main thrust of the most vocal environmental action groups.

 

The ozone will be gone, skies will cloud over and the atmosphere will hold heat in against the surface of the planet, and the oceans will rise as the icecaps melt, then submerge New York City and L.A. and dozens of other places ….these images have been a staple of Hollywood movies for decades. This is how we have come to visualize the ‘catastrophic’ effects of climate change. The statue of liberty standing neck deep in water is a mandatory CGI graphic that must be included in all contemporary disaster movies now.

 

So I would like to know. If I scrap the Hummer (I mean recycle the Hummer), turn off my lights and put on a sweater is it going to fix the “problem”? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

 

Are humans contributing to climate change? Yes, probably. Are we the sole cause of climate change? No, certainly not. Hardly. And we know this because it has happened before and in fact not so very long ago in geologic terms. The current cycle of climate also began well over ten thousand years ago, long before coal was ever burned to create electricity.

 

The planet is only (relatively) recently coming off the most recent ice age. The last one having ‘officially’ ended around 12000 years ago. This is a mere blink in geological scale, and the last ice age was apparently not even that big a deal, being relatively short lived and not as cold as scientists believe others have been over the course of the Earths history. It was more of a “mini” Ice Age. What is far more important to consider too is what it was like between the two most recent ice ages. The answer to this seems more troubling.

 

On our little planet right now it is nowhere even remotely close to being as warm now, as it got during the interval between the two most recent ice ages. Average temps are currently up some marginal amount, like 1.8 degrees Celsius, and it is forecast to rise something like 6 or 8 degrees. This is what will melt ice caps, submerge cities and generally cook all of us into extinction if, supposedly, we do not give up our coal burning habits by the weekend. But between the last two ice ages temperatures apparently rose by over 12 degrees! And there were no humans driving SUV’s then.

 

Therefore the question we are asking needs to change because it is foolish to waste time energy and money trying to find ways to reverse global warming on the lone premise that we are the cause of it, or even that it is a bad thing. The question needs to become ‘How do we adapt to a warmer planet?’ Because this will happen. It has already begun. In fact, and most relevant, it began before the steam engine was even invented. It has happened before!

 

I wish to make clear a couple of facts that always seem to bear on discussions revolving around these topics. I am not an environmentalist, or a naturalist, or an ist or subscriber of any isms of any sort whatsoever. Nor am I any Captain of industry. Just trying to be an alert observer here, and in my observations the only recurring visible evidence is that there are groups that are advancing an agenda that is based on lies.

 

I also believe at the same time that we should continue to strive to eliminate the consumption of fossil fuels world wide. This is an important goal for reasons of human health….we do not want our kids to get Leukemia or suffer the effects of Lymphomas secondary to a contaminated environment that is no longer suitable for human occupation. So let us keep working to clean the place up.

 

But if you can accept that global warming is occurring and might not be reversible, then a quick look at a map of the world reveals the real problem, that about a third of the human population is either going to have to move uphill or learn to tread water. Maybe quite soon, depending on who you believe about the schedule this is occurring on. Will the Statue of Liberty be submerged up to her neck? No, probably not, but up to her ankles is a possibility. That would make New York a lot more like Venice. Also Miami, New Orleans, Houston, San Diego, L.A., San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver……

 

Have a close look at the map. See Florida? Well you can probably take a blue crayon and shade that in the same color as the ocean. The west coast of North America could get the same treatment on your map. Most of the Northwest Territories in Canada. Large areas of Africa and South America will also submerge. Europe too. Venice will be, well, not so large anymore. Places like Bermuda, Tahiti, the Bikini Atoll….just go ahead and erase those with your blue crayon there. China has nearly 300 million people living within a few miles of the sea.

 

An attempt is being made to deceive us all en masse with a message that we can reverse global warming, and we have got to smarten up as the premise of this argument is flawed.

 

We cannot adjust to a new reality over-night, it will take time to relocate all of these massive cities uphill. People need to stop deluding themselves into believing that climate change will stop, or even more laughably reverse, if we just stop using oil and coal, and that simply is not true. The world is going to warm up. Get used to it.