Curio Lists
A Few Words on Global Warming
If you still don't believe that global warming is a serious problem, just turn on the weather news and look at the latest disaster reports. Every year low-lying regions along the coasts in North America and Asia are hit by devastating floods. The warmer our oceans become, the deadlier become the storms they create. And if you're not sure of just how ocean warming is measured, let me explain. Scientists check temperatures at various depths all the way down to about 165 feet. So when they say the oceans are growing warmer, they mean that 165 feet worth of water is growing warmer.
How does climate change or global warming happen? First of all, everyone needs to understand that it's a natural process. The Earth has been slowly growing warmer for millions and millions of years. And while scientists say that the Earth was warmer when the dinosaurs were still around 65 million years ago, they also tell us that the sun is growing warmer all the time. The sun is the source of most of Earth's heat. Radioactive elements buried in the Earth's core and crust contribute to the planet's heat, as does our molten iron-nickel core. But most of the heat that you and I feel comes from the sun. As the sun grows warmer in the next 1 billion years, so too will the Earth.
Life stores the sun's energy in carbon. Plants store it and you and I store it. When living things die they either decompose and return that carbon to the atmosphere or they sink into the Earth itself and form new layers of biological material. As more material piles up the heat and pressure of the Earth "cook" the dead matter, turning it into new minerals. That is where coal and limestone come from. Coal and oil were once plants and animals that sank into warm, moist Earth. Limestone was once sea animals and plants that sank to the bottom of the ocean. This process goes on all the time.
We humans unfortunately found that we can release a lot of that stored energy by burning things. We have been burning huge volumes of coal and oil for about 200 years. We have found other clever ways to return carbon to the atmosphere by cutting down forests. Carbon traps heat in the atmosphere and that heat gradually warms the oceans. Hence, mankind contributed to global warming. We did it unwittingly at first but now we know better and we continue to make global warming worse. We're trapped on a treadmill because of our technology.
Now it's true that we have developed new technologies that use less energy and that don't release more carbon into the atmosphere. That's the good news. The even better news is that you and I can help fight global warming from the comfort of our homes and from beauty of our gardens. Every little decision we make in life about how to manage the waste and pollution we create affects global warming. There are 7 billion of us on this planet and all our little deeds add up to one big massive uber-deed.
While I don't like to get involved in deep political arguments, I think it's time for conservative politicians to admit that they have been protecting polluting industries because of the donations those industries make to their election campaigns. We cannot afford to allow cheap political patronage to ruin our chances for survival. For a few hundred thousand dollars every 2 to 6 years, these conservatives are making policies that result in massive outlays of 10s of billions of dollars in recovery costs after natural disasters. Maybe it's time they stopped contributing to the "Big Government" they don't like by changing their short-sighted policies. And that is all I have to say on politicians.