Wow, A real life Captain Planet eco villian!
But we may need to burn all the fossil fuels and anything else
combustable we can get our greedy little hands on if the latest twist on
the "Global Warming" issue comes to pass. A rather ominous article in
the current issue of Discover about cold water from the melting polar
caps overwhelming the Gulf Stream and plunging Europe and parts of the
US into another "mini" ice age like the one at the onset of the Colonial
Era.
Our country's early history - the terrible winter at Valley Forge,
Washington's men struggling to break the ice impeding the crossing of
the Delaware and the infamous "Year Without a Summer" in the early 1800s
in which there were massive crop failures in New England and in Europe
the dark and stormy atmosphere was captured for posterity when Mary
Shelly penned "Frankenstein" - just think of all those gloomy black and
white films with the clouds and lightening!
The slant of the article points a finger at us as the cause, but drastic
climate changes related to this phenomenom have occured several times
before during recorded history and it's doubtful that the population
levels of preindustrial cultures like the Roman Empire could have that
kind of impact. The climate change did have a profound impact on some
early civilizations including Rome which may have been overwhelmed by
poorer harvests and influxes of refugees- "barbarians" trying to escape
to warmer climes.
The fact that we survived the last such episode suggests we will
probably manage to survive future ones too. But it could be rough for us
- both economically and ecologically. More so than the simple rising
temperature scenarios that proponents of global warming have been wooing
about for years. Cold is far more stressful to most life forms - esp
humans than a transition to a warmer planet.
Still not likely to be the end of the world as we know it; but possibly
bad enough to make Ray Wolff quit Wisconsin! Guess maybe I should think
about buying a parcel of land in the south. It will be hard to choose
between Moon or Casper as future next door neighbors!
Jeff
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