A few days ago I saw a politician arguing about global warming on an evening news show. He didn't dispute that there was "climate change" or that the earth was warming. What he did insist was that there was no definitive evidence that humans were causing the phenomenon and that therefore it wasn't up to us to do anything about it.
Last week I attended a forum about international efforts in alternative energy forms during which a scientist showed a dramatic and frightening graph of the current warming "trend" along with past warming and cooling cycles of the earth for a long span of geological time. What made this one stand out was not only the steepness and speed of the temperature ascent but the height of it and the astonishingly greater amount of CO2 in the air.
We can argue about the causes. We can blame it on the earth itself, but even if we are in one of the earth's periodic warming cycles, it seems to me that the evidence that we are exacerbating it and making it happen far faster is hard to defy.
Humanity has it without our power to do something to slow this progression, and if we don't, we deserve the ugly fate that awaits us. The trouble is, it won't be "us" who suffer the brunt of it. It will be our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Let's try this analogy. If I discovered that somehow a brush fire had started on a hill behind my house, which would be the better course of action? A. Figure out how to slow it's progress, or B. Throw some more brush on it and say that I didn't start it anyway so there's no point in trying to slow it down.
Without our willingness to conserve, use less energy, develop alternative energy forms that contribute less to the warming trends, and stem the rising population of the earth; without our willingness to be good stewards of the resources we depend upon, we risk losing many of the wonders around us, natural and manmade. We risk dwindling water supplies, lower crop production, fiercer competition for scarcer resources, and ultimately, beyond the danger of climate changes, the danger of political instability and strife.
Why is population a part of this picture? Because each one of us consumes resources, and everything we consume, whether it is food, goods, heating, cooling, housing, transportation, and yes, using the internet, requires energy. The more of us, the more energy is needed, and right now, that energy is coming from sources that are, in the end, heating up our planet.
I am incredibly fortunate. I live in a beautiful place which provides me much joy in the natural environment. I am blessed with reasonably good health. Unlike the members of our military forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and people living in many war-ridden places around the globe, I do not daily face injury or death and am able to peacefully pursue my life. I have a close and loving family. The technology that I enjoy using -- much of which requires electricity like this computer, enriches my life.
I'd not only like to keep it that way, I'd like my grandchildren to be as fortunate. I hope we can get our government and businesses to take their heads out of the CO2 cloud and care about the future.
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2 comments:
Even if evidence is there is no solid evidence for human cause global warming (which I would argue there is), it still surprises me how ignorant some are with respect on people what clear impact we have on earth. Know that climate is changing dramatically, shouldn't people first look at themselves, before dismissing our effect as a "natural climate cycle"? Even if our CO2 emissions didn't cause the change in greenhouse effects, wouldn't be wise to start planning alternative, renewable, resources, now before the oil runs out?
Absolutely! Regardless of the causes of the problem, if we value life on earth, we should be doing what we can to mitigate the problem.
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