Global warming, a deadly serious reality
I write this letter to Mr. Sharrock and anyone else who still believes that global warming is a delusion of shock-jock scientists.
Frankly, the lack of education it takes for someone to believe that there is no evidence for the severity of global warming is astonishing. To understand some of the data you do have to have a doctorate degree. Yes, I've taken a few classes on and related to the topic, I know just how intense some of this information can be. However, to understand most of it, you have to have graduated fifth grade.
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We have global climate data for thousands of years, not just 300, by means of dendrochronology (a precise and intensely accurate scientific measurement) and ice cores (sampling the chemistry of a chunk of ice thousands of years old from the remnants of glaciers), among a few other occasional lucky finds, like undisturbed sedimentary deposits on ocean floors. All of this data proves the cyclical nature of the Ice Age that we've been living in for likely over 100,000 years (the current glaciation/inter-glaciation cycle has lasted about 10,000 years).
All evidence about fifty years ago was pointing to the onset of another glaciation cycle, which would've covered the majority of this continent in one or, more likely, two glaciers. However, then something strange happened. A something strange that shows up in all scientific measurements - a spike in the CO2 levels of the atmosphere and therefore ice, sediment, and tree rings. A spike that started to clearly form sometime around the 70s and has risen steadily and dramatically to come to, by some data, over 1000% the normal level of atmospheric carbon dioxide for the last 100,000 years.
Globally, temperatures started to rise. Not noticble to humans, in the air. However, animals noticed. Fish noticed, as did insects. Migrations have been crazy, birds' patterns are off -- there are areas of the world seeing butterflies that they've never seen before. The ocean water around the poles may only be two or three degrees higher year-round, but those two or three degrees are enough to prevent summer melt-off from being recovered, and melt is continuing year-round.
Our planet, ladies and gentlemen, was thrown into a period of ice ages by a natural phenomenon -- just what is still in debate in some circles. By releasing so very, very much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we've kicked it out by an unnatural phenomenon. We evolved in an ice age, we're not designed to handle temperatures we could face in a hundred or two hundred years. This isn't just about ice caps melting and polar bears and penguins having no chilly harbors in winter. This is about the survival of the human race. Evolution takes thousands, millions of years -- we're not going to adapt within 200 to temperatures of 40 degrees being the coldest night of the year in Norway, and 145 being the average expected temperature in previously temperate areas. We cannot expect our species and our civilization to survive intact if we allow things to continue the way that they are. We could easily permanently ruin our atmosphere within 200 years if we continue to use fossil fuels in such an unbridled way. We could roast ourselves and pretty much all of the plant and animal life on the planet into extinction within a thousand years if we're not careful. A thousand years might sound like forever -- I mean, just 500 years ago Europeans set foot onto this continent for the first time. Five hundred years from now, Europeans might not have much left to set foot on.
Global warming isn't just some scare-crazy scientist's fancy, it's a deadly serious reality.
Blythe Hart
Springettsbury Township
Blythe,
Thanks for this incredible letter. It gives me hope that maybe at some point people might look beyond their single-generation thinking.
Great letter. It really is disappointing that so many people think that this is a political issue. It is NOT part of the culture wars. The scientific community has moved beyond debate about the existence of global climate change. It is a certainty. We need to move to the next phase. What do we do about it. People dismissing it as a crazy liberal scheme remind me of how - for decades - tobacco executives denied that cigarrettes could kill you.
Unfortunately your opponents on this issue won't read your comments as they will have deemed your opinion to "hard to read" or not worth considering. They have made up their minds and will simply stick to it. I have actually heard about a local high school social studies teacher tell his students that global warming is a farce and use as his proof that ice melting in a cup does not overflow the cup. He does not quite get the difference between pack ice and the ice on land and certainly could not be convinced that the Earth's albedo will be changed forever by any major melting of ice.