Global Thinking About Global Warming

I have been part of an email conversation about global warming. It has sparked some very "lively" and very heated comments from both sides. I mostly sat on the sidelines, but I finally decided I had something to say. Below are my thoughts on this provocative issue.

I’d like to jump in here for a couple of observations. It seems there are a few questions on the table. They may all be repeats of things covered in earlier e-mails, but they keep coming up for me, so I thought I’d add my two cents.

Is there a climatological crisis?
Did mankind’s activities create it?
Is there something we can do about it?

Each of those questions seems to have sub-questions.

is there a crisis?
It sure seems so. Things are happening. Scientists are gathering data and reporting on it. That part seems undeniable. But the Newsweek cover back in the 60’s said the crisis was that we were getting too cold and the planet would be freezing. That was only 40 years ago. What will Newsweek or scientists say in another 40 years? I have no idea. However, it seems our perspective is filtered severely by the short span of our lives. If we personally experience a heat wave, we may make some decisions that things are heating up. If we experience a cold snap at an odd time of year, we may conclude that things are cooling down.

And that is the problem I had with Al Gore’s recent comment about changes like “more tornadoes than in living memory” (emphasis added). I can’t remember where I put my keys. How can I rely on my memory to make policies about something as big as the climate? Let me be clear – I believe in recycling and living lightly on the land. But Mr. Gore’s comments sound a bit narcissistic. Of course there is a lot of data and ice core samples, etc., but Gore’s folksy approach seems a little disingenuous. Besides...with mass communication being as good and as instantaneous as it is, we are finding out about things so quickly, that it may appear there are more tornadoes than ever, simply because we’re all finding out about them all so quickly, instead of hearing about them when the Pony Express brings the news.

2. Did mankind’s activities create it?
This is a great question. Environmentalists are certain that we did. It makes logical sense that as the pace of the Industrial Age has picked up, major impacts are being felt in the ecosphere and ultimately the climate. But just because those two events are occurring simultaneously, does not necessarily prove cause and effect. The character in “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” apparently made the sun go dark. To the unwitting mind, it was obvious and clear that he did it. But to people who understand the broader natural cycles that were going to occur anyway, it is clear that he was not the cause of the sun’s disappearance. I use that example and mean no disrespect to anyone in this email dialogue. This is as an amazing, talented, smart, sincere and heartfelt group of people as probably exists anywhere. But if – and this is a big if – there are natural climatological cycles that take thousands of years to cycle through, how would we ever get a clear enough picture to truly understand how it all works? Modern methods, such as studying ice core samples, are certainly a good start. But it seems that new discoveries keep changing our understanding of the past. An example might the one-time cataclysmic anomalies like a meteor strike that created a nuclear winter that killed the dinosaurs. Maybe that incident triggered some slow moving something else that we have not figured out yet.

3. Is there something we can do about it?
I think the great thing about the human mind is that whether we can or whether we can’t take effective action, we like to (and may even need to) take some kind of action, if only to feel like we are doing “something.” That is what gives us hope to keep pushing on to find the next thing we should do to avert the next disaster. I believe in hope and its importance for keeping us in action. And that is what is so frustrating about this whole issue. We don’t know if we can stop what seems to be happening. And if it is a natural cycle, could we stop it anyway?

This last thought speaks to Robert’s question about whether there really is a correct time to ring the alarm...when to know you have reached it...and will that give us the time to do anything effective.

When I was boy I attended a summer camp in upstate New York. I can remember one night in particular when I stood out in a large field and looked up at the sky. It was one of those moments where even as a boy, I had an overwhelming experience of my smallness in a vast universe. I was amazed to see so many stars. I could actually see the crowded spray of stars that made me aware of how we were a part of the Milky Way, and our little planet is but a mere, tiny dot...the smallest of specks in comparison to the immensity of what is out there. I feel that way when I try to understand the problems questions and effective solutions for our ecological issues.

Best,
Richard Rossner