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We hear so much about global warming. Yes, I'm convinced that it's happening. Study after study shows that average temperatures in the past two decades have been the highest on record. In our household, Judy and I are doing a little something about it. We've scaled back our driving a bit, getting several errands done on one trip out of our little village, for example. We're installing fluorescent light bulbs when the old incandescents burn out. We take brief showers, don't let the water run when we brush our teeth, don't water the shrubs and trees as long or as often as before, recycle papers, cans, and bottles, turn off the computer at night, keep the thermostat at 72 degrees in winter (brr!) and 80 in summer, and have purchased reusable cloth bags for hauling home our groceries. And I, for one, try to grab everything I can from the refrigerator in one swoop--the milk for my cereal, the jam for my toast, the water bottle for my pills--apply or use them as quickly as possible, then re-swoop them up and pop them back into the fridge before they can warm up and force our sturdy Kenmore to labor to recool them.
A paragon of virtue? Not me. Just trying to be, in very tiny ways, a good citizen. No, make that a good, skeptical citizen because--although I believe that global warming is happening--I have questions about its causes and effects.
To what extent is it man-made? There have been numerous warmings and coolings during the history of the earth. Greenhouse gases have become a problem only in the last 50 years. It's at least arguable that the movement of the earth's tectonic plates, variations in the earth's orbit and its orientation to the sun, and gaseous activity within the sun itself have contributed to our current warming. A recent New York Times article--"Will the Next Ice Age Be a Very Long One?"--says this: " A new analysis of the dramatic cycles of ice ages and warm intervals over the past million years, published in Nature, concludes that the climatic swings are the gyration of a system poised to settle into a quasi-permanent colder state--with expanded ice sheets at both poles." Certainly, one article is not definitive, but at least some scientists think that, in spite of the present warming, we're headed toward another ice age. Ironically enough, if that's true, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would actually help us by keeping the earth a little warmer. It may one day be our patriotic duty to burn as much coal in backyard fireplaces as we can!
Even if global warming is primarily man-made, and even if we are not headed toward an ice age, how much should we be concerned about it? How much should we change our behavior? Will there truly be a domino effect if we don't? Can we reverse or even significantly slow it without reverting to a pre-industrial way of life which most of us would abhor? And might we not soon make great technological progress--sun shields, reflectors, etc.--that will help combat global warming without drastically changing our way of life? Failing that, what if we simply accept and embrace the warming without trying to combat it? We're an adaptive, intelligent species capable of dealing with rising sea levels and warmer northern regions. If certain species of flora and fauna migrate or even disappear, will not nature find a new balance? We lost the dodo eons ago--do we really miss it? If tropical fish invade Puget Sound and actual bananas grow in the Sequim banana belt, inventive Seattleites will enjoy them in a Polynesian stir fry. Baked Alaska will become wheat-growing country as well as a favorite desert. Ari(d)zona will get desalinated excess sea water piped in from the California coast. New Orleans will become a Gulf coast Venice replete with Cajun canals and singing piroguers for the revelling tourists who, after boat rides, jambalaya, deep-fried catfish, and bourbon, will jokingly dub it the Big Queasy.
I'm certain of one thing: if I have to choose, I'll take global warming over global cooling, Tarzan as who a man should aspire to be rather than Nanook. Hey--what just happened? Did hot-blooded Judy turn that thermostat down to 70? Man, I'm freezing!
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