Can't believe those lying eyes
For the first time in living memory, the Great Lakes have not frozen this year. The impact is wide but the conventional thinking is just as mixed. Even where the evidence is more apparent, skeptics will scoff at "global warming."
To quote the legendary Cool Hand Luke, "I think what we have here is a failure to communicate." Maybe it's time to reframe the concept. Every time the temperature drops below 40 dgrees in the south, everyone says, yeah -- tell me about global warming. What they're not getting is when the Great Lakes don't freeze and Florida does, something is out of whack.
It's hard for anyone to get their mind around the urgency of something that will take a century to manifest but perhaps if we begin speaking of it as climate disruption -- and that's really what it is -- it will become more tangible to those unwilling to admit its existence.
[via HuffPo]
To quote the legendary Cool Hand Luke, "I think what we have here is a failure to communicate." Maybe it's time to reframe the concept. Every time the temperature drops below 40 dgrees in the south, everyone says, yeah -- tell me about global warming. What they're not getting is when the Great Lakes don't freeze and Florida does, something is out of whack.
It's hard for anyone to get their mind around the urgency of something that will take a century to manifest but perhaps if we begin speaking of it as climate disruption -- and that's really what it is -- it will become more tangible to those unwilling to admit its existence.
[via HuffPo]
posted by Libby Spencer at 7:51 PM
3 Comments:
I have no doubt that we are in a warming cycle. However, the history of the planet is a history of weather cycles. Do you know why Greenland is called Greenland? Because when it was first discoved over a thousand years ago there was abundant plant life there. Now it is mostly a frozen wasteland. I just can't get too excited over global warming and don't figure that it is going to be all that much of a detriment to human life even if the ocreans do rise twenty feet. So Florida is covered with water-good that will make Atlanta a sea port. Maybe the left coast will get sunmerged also and Las Vegas can get some gambling ships.
The point is that the environment changes and humans adapt to it. Humans have been responsibilble for changing the earth's environment ever since there have been humans and humans are not aline in making the changes-all flora and fauna help change the environment. Humans have caused the encroachment of the Sahara Desert south ward and humans destroyed the Cedars of Lebanon. Overgrazing by wild animal herds have caused deserts and wild vines in the undergrowth of forests have destroyed thousands of trees, The damn bark weavils are destroying my Pine trees right now and there is nothing I can do about it except hope that it gets warn enough to kill them
I didn't realize none of the Great Lakes had frozen over. I read last week that Munising Bay (on Lake Superior) hadn't frozen over yet and that's wayyyyyyy up north, so it doesn't surprise me the rest of the lakes are in the same condition.
My hubby is half American Indian and he often talks about how selfish and careless we are with nature. We don't think of trees, climate, lakes, etc., as living organisms all intertwined. If we put smoke into our lungs we can get cancer, so why can't people understand that what we do to the earth is just as harmful.
BTW, I like your idea of reframing the concept, but I've come to the conclusion that some people are just too dumb to see the bigger picture.
Guyk, I agree with you to a point...weather cycles do play a role in the history of the earth. However, man's carelessness has been responsible for many environmental changes. In the case of the deserts in the Middle East, those came about after years of growing the same crop year after year without regard for soil depletion. They didn't understand tips like crop rotation, etc., back in the days of the fertile crescent.
Let me give an example closer to home. Here in Michigan we have lost almost all of our elm trees in the lower peninsula because of the emerald beetle. The beetle came in on some wood from Asia and scientists immediately saw the danger. They put out orders making it illegal to transport wood to other counties, but people didn't listen. They took the dead trees and cut them into fire wood and then transported them up north. It is estimated that all elm trees in lower Michigan may be eradicated within a few years.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that some environmental changes are just a natural part of evolution, but some come about as a result of man's ignorance and carelessness. When we know better, we have no excuse for continuing down the same path.
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