Do something about climate change or Mother Nature will do something about us
Unfortunately, there’s a worldwide anti-science sentiment these days, especially concerning climate change/global warming. A longtime climate scientist said that it’s really global heating instead of global warming. More on that later.
If you’re anti-science, here are a few everyday things for you to consider.
Have you ever been to a doctor for any kind of sickness, or serious health problem? Stop! Never go to a doctor again. Doctors have to study science to be able to diagnose your symptoms and prescribe the proper treatment.
Ever had any medicines prescribed to cure any kind of sickness or help with some other health problem? Again stop. The pharmacist had to study science to make certain our prescriptions will keep us well and functioning.
How about traveling from place to place using a car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, plane or boat? Stop that, too! Science was used to create all those forms of transportation. From now on you’ll have to take pains and walk, row, row row your boat, or ride a large four-legged critter.
Do you communicate using a Smartphone, computer; on Facebook, Instagram, Skype or anything on the Internet?
You’ll have to give all that up and actually talk face-to-face with people or use snail-mail, because it took science to invent the telegraph, telephone and computer. And no more electric lights or anything electrical, either.
Wear glasses or contacts? Hate to tell you, but you’ll have to give them up, too, because it took the science of optics to give you 20/20 vision. And hearing aids? Throw them away; science lets you hear clearly.
Still anti-science?
And climate change/global warming is real. It’s physics; the numbers prove it. The Industrial Revolution began about 250 years ago, and since then we’ve been emitting CO2 — a greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere 24/7/365. And now methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas, is being added to the mix. High in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases let the Sun’s radiation in, but don’t let all of it radiate back into space.
That’s how the greenhouse effect works.
It’s taken a couple of centuries but the trapped heat has made it down to us. The ice is melting at both poles, the world’s glaciers are disappearing, sea levels rising, the heat is warming the oceans affecting all life and causing catastrophic problems in that fragile ecosystem. And let’s not forget the supercharged hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, tornadoes and flooding occurring now.
The federal government/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have recently released alarming reports. And the latest United Nations report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service stated, “Human activity has pushed 1 million plant and animal species to the brink of extinction.”
On May 15, atmospheric CO2 levels hit 415.7 parts per million, highest in human history; that has not happened on Earth for the last 3 million years. That record will definitely be broken. The last time CO2 levels were this high, it was the Pliocene Epoch, no humans existed, and there were trees at the south pole.
We better do something about climate change or Mother Nature will do something about us.
In interviews, and his final book, Professor Stephen Hawking said that if we continue to ignore the problem and do nothing, the temperature in the future could reach a Venus-like 482 degrees with sulfuric acid rain. He also stated, “It may be too late.”
Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said, “Nature is collapsing around us and it’s a real wake-up call to humanity.”
And a great quote from a teacher/scientist/environmentalist stresses, “Earth first in Things, Thoughts, Deeds, Decisions.”
We have no other choice, no Planet B; the time for action is very quickly running out.
Francis Parnell
Member, Natural Resources Defense Council Darlington
