February 16, 2010

• Adapt or Die

  Taking a chance that Xanga will let me post. After all, it only took a minute for the editor to load, so maybe…
  
  So let’s talk about the climate.
  
  I personally believe in Global Warming. I know not everyone does, but I do. We can agree to disagree. But if we do disagree, let’s instead call it Climate Change. No one can argue with the changing weather patterns, not when there’s virtual drought in some areas when there’s been rain and vice versa.
  
  Now, get this. Regardless of our much argued impact on the environment, we’ve been looking at the sun for a pretty long time, charting sunspots and other solar activity. And we’ve been taking core samples in Antarctica for decades. We know that the sun goes through stronger and weaker cycles and this information has been correlated with core samples from Antarctica. Those who don’t believe in Global Warming may find it ironic that these studies tell us we’re heading into a new Ice Age! This is based solely on the energy output of the sun and has nothing to do with our activities here on our little ball of carbon-enhanced dirt.

  I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, Spring has virtually disappeared over the years, giving rise to more of an Autumn/Winter/Summer cycle. Not that Summer is excessively hot. Last year, I think I had the air conditioner on a total of two weeks over all. Where we used to get lots of snow early with less closer to Spring, we now get snow later and closer to the beginning of the season formerly known as Spring. I affect, snow showers make for grumpy spring flowers and polleniferous explosions (yeah, I know it’s not a real word, but for allergy sufferers, it should be) once the snow/frost finally quits and the trees and grasses start popping.
  
  Really, at this point I think we should stop arguing about Global Warming. Point of fact, we might be a lot colder if not for Global warming! But regardless, it’s time to start talking about Climate Change… changing weather patterns… changes in rainfall/snowfall and temperature can have disastrous affects on ecology. It can devastate farmland. Look at the American Dust Bowl during the Depression where inches of vital top soil were just blown away by lack of rain and high winds.
  
  So really, Global Warming, Global Cooling… it all becomes moot when you consider the affects any change in the weather has on our ability to feed ourselves. Because really, until some supervillain invents a weather controlling satellite to eventually be thwarted by a superhero who donates the oh so useful satellite to humanity, we’re kind of stuck with what we get. You can’t control the weather.
  
  But you can control how you deal with it. We’ve certainly come a long way from having major cities shut down for weeks by tons of snow. Despite the fact that weather prediction is still largely guesswork, it’s guesswork based on better data, which therefore gives us a better level of guesswork than a barometer on the front porch. At this point, it would really behoove us to look at the areas facing the greatest impact from changing weather patterns and adapt ourselves to those changes… begin conserving water in areas where we’ve begun to see drought year after year, not just in the years when it’s especially bad. Change the type of crop we’re growing in areas where the weather has changed… in areas of drought to combat erosion, crops with more ground cover, etc.
  
  Hey, I’m no expert on weather or agriculture, but if nothing else, Nature teaches us that creatures that can’t adapt die.

  • 2:54 pm
  • 5 Comments