More hand wringing, perhaps, but this is one of those things that constantly bugs me and I can do absolutely nothing about it. So in order to let you glimpse another bit of my neurosis, I give you:
There, I said it. I’m surrounded by people that insist there is no such thing as global warming, that it was all invented by “lefties” to push forward their tax-and-spend agenda, why did it snow so much if the earth is getting warmer, blah blah blah.
I’d love to tell them all to fuck off, but since I’m related to some of them, that isn’t very nice. So I try and needle them with pesky little “facts” once in a while, but they always have an answer.
How about this little bit?
But this winter’s unexpected developments in the Beaufort Sea suggest that all bets are off. Waters that used to lose 10,000 square kilometres a year in ice cover, according to scientists, currently lose at least eight times that amount. Now, some scientists are speculating that the Arctic could be seasonally ice-free in less than a decade.
“The ice is no longer growing or getting old,” says John Falkingham, chief forecaster for the Canadian Ice Service, the Environment Canada agency that helps ships find a way through the Northwest Passage and other parts of the Arctic.
WTF? You mean, after always having ice year round for say, the last million years or so, we’re looking at being ice free in the summer, and this is just normal? If I were to take a poll, right now in the room I am sitting in, out of the 100 people I bet the majority would insist it is normal, and there’s nothing we could do about it anyway. They probably have that last part right. The question is, what will this mean to everything else. The earth being like a giant rubik’s cube, where even if you get all the colors right on one side, chances are you’ll fuck up three or four other sides in the process.
Finally, this is not about being right. I hope to hell that my fears are unfounded, that the planet isn’t stricken with something akin to a cancer that we puny humans are powerless to treat. I really hope that ten years from now somebody will find this entry on google and come back and be able to honestly comment “see? Nothing to worry about, we’re all fine.” I really do.
