Will it ever end?
Is it even real?
As I See It, most people accept that our Planet Earth has changed several times over its millions of years of existence.
But, for some reason, many intelligent, educated people insist that those changes have stopped and that the weather we have now is the same as it’s always been, and it will continue, unchanged for ever.
Unfortunately, ‘we, the people’ have no way of learning the ‘facts’ because, today, the ‘media’ (news, television, the internet), are firmly in the control of biased, extremists on both sides of every issue.
So, the ‘news’ we get is “There is no problem!” or ‘We have a total disaster!”
But, there are a few ‘facts’ which, I think, most people will accept.
The years 2016 and 2020 are the warmest years on record.
Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show continuing shrinkage year-after-year.
Tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks provide also show the problem.
Several Paleoclimate studies show that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of warming after any ice age.
Also Carbon Dioxide from human activities is increasing about 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.
Cut down an old tree. The tree rings clearly show that there are substantial variations in rainfall year-to-year. Sometimes year-after-year.
World-wide, water levels have risen substantially. Scuba diving in the Mediterranean will show you whole cities which are now thirty feet under water.
Even in the USA, many areas in the mountains have lost the snow coverage which has been there all our lives, but is now disappearing.
The mighty Colorado River is drying up.
The list goes on and on.
The deniers claim that this process is only temporary, and that, sooner or later, everything will change back to ‘normal’.
Maybe it will.
But, in the meantime, shouldn’t we deal with the growing problems which exist now?
For example, I accept as fact, the pictures and measurements we get from satellites which all show rising water levels, shrinking snow caps and disappearing icebergs.
Even the North and South Poles are melting.
Most Scientists claim that, in the last 800,000 years, we have had at least eight Ice Ages. The last one ended about 11,700 years ago.
(Which, by-the-way, triggered the ‘exodus’ of modern humans out of Africa and the near-extermination of the Neanderthal people).
(I say “near-extermination” because, over the years, I’ve met several ‘survivors’, even, right here in Florida!).
Is it cynical to say that humanity is incapable of facing up to the facts?
As I See It, that question is irrelevant!
Did you ever hear the story about the herds of Lemmings which commit suicide by jumping off a cliff to their death, or drowning in the river?
Apparently, every few years, hundreds of them blindly follow a new leader off into the great unknown to eventual catastrophe.
Does that sound more and more like us?
Where our leaders and their followers demand unquestioning, blind loyalty. No questions asked.
Of course, homes lost in a flood, or burned in a forest fire might affect ‘them’.
But not us!
So, why worry?
‘til next time, . . . .
