..about global warming. It was when someone told me she was going to do some research on whether the planets are aligning or something that would explain all of this crazy weather we're having this year. (We live in the St. Louis metro area, and have had tornados--even one that hit our airport, flooding on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, and now huge amounts of water are headed this way down the Missouri river. Today, June 3, it is supposed to reach 94 degrees F, and tomorrow 97.)
To myself I was thinking, after thirty years of scientists from all over the world telling us and telling us that our carbon emissions are affecting the global climate, someone is wondering whether astrology can explain the weather. You've got to be kidding me! You'd rather believe in some fantastical explanation than the one based on years and years of scientific evidence?
So I went off. I said emphatically--it's global warming. Then I went on. The scientists have been telling us for thirty years that our burning of the carbon that is normally locked into the ground is creating a warmer climate. Now China and India are industrializing and pouring even more carbon into the atmosphere, adding to the already obscene amounts of emissions from the U.S. and other industrialized countries. It is only getting worse, but nothing is being done because for thirty years the oil and gas industry has smeared these scientists because they don't want anything to interfere with their huge profits.
Then I posed the question: Who does it make more sense to believe, teams of scientists from around the world who have been studying this phenomenon for decades, or the oil and gas industry who is afraid of losing some of their huge profits?
The answer was obvious to the person (or she was afraid of me, I'm not sure).
Global warming, global climate change, is here. Now. Real scientists around the world are saying so and have been saying so for years. Why is it that those of us who try to talk about the science are treated as kooks, while people with a straight face think they can explain the weather with astrology, the coming rapture, or whatever the heck?
The inability of human society to collectively deal with this issue is one of the biggest disappointments of my adult life. I have been saying for years that the human race is going to choke on its own dirt. I'm changing that slightly now because we are already in the process. The human race IS choking on its own dirt.
By the way, I drive a small car to my job that is about 4 miles from my house, sometimes I even ride my bike, and I don't eat meat. I know a lot of people on this site are equally careful about their own carbon footprints. But sheesh. In the face of the ignorance that abounds out there, how do we make real progress on this issue?