Global Warming
May 4th, 2009 by Linda JenkinsonAlthough An Inconvenient Truth is a great movie (IMO) it wasn’t the first to indicate the perils of climatic change.
Several years ago, comedian and conservative political pundit Dennis Miller made a crack about global warming. To paraphrase, he said “Who cares if the Earth’s temperature goes up a degree or two every hundred years.” Oddly enough in his new material he has reversed his stance on the problem of global warming. I guess he found out that there is reason to care.
The fact is that this planet is a system. It all works together or it doesn’t work at all. Yes, it is truly incredible that in less than a century human kind has managed to mess up a beautiful system, but the facts are facts.
Long before 2005, I saw a documentary about how the polar (specifically the antarctic) glaciers are rapidly melting into the sea. At the time scientists didn’t know why. Now they do.
I learned from an episode of Mega Disasters on the History Channel that a mini-ice age began about the time of the Dark Ages started. In fact, it may have caused the Dark Ages. This mini ice age lasted up until the 1800′s. It wasn’t “global warming” but it was caused by climatic changes of the sort we are experiencing now, the greatest being the melting of the polar ice caps which introduced fresh water into the seas and substantially changed the environment.
The late comedian, George Carlin did a wonderful bit about planetary change. His take—the earth will survive. Although people and other life forms may not, this hunk of rock will. I tend to agree with his viewpoint. My take is that Mother Earth will always take care of herself with little regard to the lifeforms that try to mess up the system in place. Recent climatic changes and severe weather indicate (to me) that perhaps she is looking at humankind as a fast growing, virulent, virus that she needs to eradicate. I hope we can change her mind before it’s too late.
