Posted on by admin

#10 Climate Change or ‘If you think it’s hot now, wait until you get to Hell!’

Photo: Clip Dealer

There’s been a good deal of media coverage over the past several decades regarding the issue of climate change.  I peripherally became aware of the topic when news reports began mentioning the ozone hole in the Antarctic.  At the time there was a lot of anecdotal speculation as to what was causing the hole (e.g. high-altitude jet exhaust, generally human generated CO2 build up or simply the naturally dynamic nature of earth and its atmosphere.)  (1) Most recently, the hole is reported to be getting smaller.

I tend to be someone, who, while willing to acknowledge an individual’s right to an opinion, feels that I have a right to my own opinion, too, one that’s based on facts.  In the case of climate change the science yields the facts; (2) it’s real.  The graph below illustrates the change in global temperature over the past 140 years or so.

While there will always be deniers and as previously mentioned they are certainly free to have their own opinion, I figuratively place them in a column tangential to the conspiracy theorists.  Interestingly, this behavior is now clinically classified by the Journal of Psychiatry as a personality disorder. (3) In a culture of fear, we should expect the rise of new mechanisms of social control to deflect distrust, anxiety, and threat. Relying on the analysis of popular and academic texts, we examine one such mechanism, the label conspiracy theory, and explore how it works in public discourse to “go meta” by sidestepping the examination of evidence. Our findings suggest that authors use the conspiracy theorist label as (a) a routinized strategy of exclusion; (b) a reframing mechanism that deflects questions or concerns about power, corruption, and motive; and (c) an attack upon the personhood and competence of the questioner. This label becomes dangerous machinery at the transpersonal levels of media and academic discourse.

I am a proudly registered independent voter. I have voted for both Republican and Democrat candidates.  I am a voter that nearly always votes the issues as opposed to a specific candidate or political party.  I feel it’s important to acknowledge this because I could not help but think of the policy or lack thereof by the (4) current administration for eliminating all references to climate change in policy statements by governmental departments such as the Department of Energy, the Agriculture Department and others.  Add to this the fact that, as of this writing, there is no American executive or upper legislative branch support for the ratification of the Paris Climate accord and one wonders if science, as a basis for decision-making, has any home in the current elected body politic.

The second bifurcation of opinion regarding climate change is its root cause.  Is climate change the result of the natural dynamic associated with the rhythm of our planet?  Is climate change happening for another reason such as the impact of an ever increasing population with a rapidly developing third world economy, one that is not much different than that of the U.S. when it shifted from a largely agrarian economy to one that was industrial-based post Reconstruction?  Could it be a combination of factors?

The graphs below illustrate that the earth’s climate is indeed variable. A long time ago, looking back:

(a)

And, a less prehistoric and contemporary perspective . . .

(b)

An economist would characterize this second illustration as a hockey stick graph denoted by the sharp upward curve starting about 1900.  This is roughly the beginning of the industrial age in what today are considered developed countries.

For eons humans were largely hunter / gatherers whose life was framed by agriculture, livestock, etc.  Cows and dinosaurs, too, have always passed gas.  Methane (CH4) is a   condition of a carbon-based organism.  It’s likely that the eruption of volcanos, asteroid collisions and the flora and fauna of prehistoric times accounted for the narrowly bound variations in climate.  Based on the data above it can be shown that a significant inflection point correlates to large scale human industrialization.

A cohort subset of the climate change deniers mentioned earlier are those that believe climate change is a means of societal control by the economic and political elite.  There is some truth to this.  However, I believe the motivation is not as nefarious an agenda as this libertarian political characterization.  I suspect it’s more of a clarion call to those capable of critical thinking.  Beyond the ‘wake up’ warning is an acknowledgement that the world is changing.  What were once economically disadvantaged counties and societies are now undergoing their own industrial revolution.  A new middle class has emerged where one never existed.  China and India are only two of many countries that in the past half century have undergone their own industrial revolution.  These two nations alone account for over a third of global population.

These are simply some of the noteworthy science-based organizations that have concluded that the sharp increase in the curve of global warming is largely due to human activity: The American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Medical Association, American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society; that’s just the ‘A’s’. For a more comprehensive list please visit: https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

While I applaud the efforts of the United Nations, the leadership some of its member countries individually (sadly, the United States is not in this group) and the activists drawing attention to climate change I will take issue with one statement made by young activist Greta Thunberg when addressing the U.N. Climate Summit.  While there is some truth that money and profit remain a contributing catalyst to global warming, I believe Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi more correctly positioned the role of these factors moving forward.  (4) Both are needed to develop and put in place the technology needed to reverse the trend of global warning.

As a USAF veteran I’ve lived through and experienced many a cold and snowy winter in various parts of the world.  As a former pilot I know a little bit about weather; enough to get me up and down safely.  Weather is a day-to-day occurrence.  Climate, however, is longer term.  For some policy-makers, people, organizations, countries, etc. it’s only today that matters.  However, tomorrow will surely come, if not for us, then our children.  As one parish priest told the congregation in a non-air-conditioned church on an unbearably hot, humid summer day back in the 1960’s, “I know it’s hot, so this sermon will be short.  But, if you think it’s hot now, wait until you get to Hell!”

I hope you enjoy the following (tongue-in-cheek) musical interlude as you read this blog article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bbuBubZ1yE

2 Replies to “#10 Climate Change or ‘If you think it’s hot now, wait until you get to Hell!’”

  1. An Excellent Blog, exceptionally well written with an eye opening stance that provides fact along with a balanced opinion. Enjoyed this tremendously. A piece of journalism at its best.

Comments are closed.