Commentary: My 2 Cents
When we started this blog, the intent was to document how individuals could make a difference by reducing their personal CO2 footprints.
However, the more I read, the more I become convinced that just focusing on what each individual can do isn't going to be enough. Don't get me wrong - the whole idea that individual actions when taken in the aggregate are what changes the world, is still my belief, and that will still be our focus. (Remember Margaret Mead's quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world.")
But, there is going to have to be a way to translate those individual actions and individual choices into political will, and soon. And, frankly, given the lack of will to do anything about anything in Congress these days, I am starting to worry.
Last night, I was reading about the thawing permafrost in Siberia, and how much methane (CH4) is being released as a result. Methane is 20 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide in terms of its greenhouse effects. Currently, millions of tons of methane are frozen in the permafrost in and near the Arctic circle - places like Siberia and Alaska. Places that have not thawed in tens of thousands of years. That methane has been effectively "locked up" - frozen - but now warming trends are releasing it into the atmosphere. The more methane that's released, the more the climate warms, and the more the climate warms, the more methane is released from thawing permafrost - on & on.
Humankind has not faced a dramatic planetary climate transformation of this nature in the 12,000 years since the end of the last Continental Glacial period (known as the Wisconsin glaciation in North America). Back then, there were not nearly as many Homo sapiens populating the world as we have today, and they were generally of a more nomadic nature, making it relatively easy to move around based on climatic changes, water levels, availability of food, etc.
There is no doubt in my mind that Global Warming (or Global Climate Change, Planetary Purgatory, etc, etc) is the most important issue that our generations (those generations living today) will face. When the choices made today could spell whether or not hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by rising waters across the globe - let alone many millions in this country - this is a crisis of proportions we are not as a world prepared to manage.
When weather patterns are likely to change so dramatically that severe droughts will be much more common, extreme heat waves - like the one in 2003 that killed thousands in Europe - will occur with regularity, mega hurricanes stronger than Katrina will be annual events, what will we, Homo sapiens, do in response?
However, the more I read, the more I become convinced that just focusing on what each individual can do isn't going to be enough. Don't get me wrong - the whole idea that individual actions when taken in the aggregate are what changes the world, is still my belief, and that will still be our focus. (Remember Margaret Mead's quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world.")
But, there is going to have to be a way to translate those individual actions and individual choices into political will, and soon. And, frankly, given the lack of will to do anything about anything in Congress these days, I am starting to worry.
Last night, I was reading about the thawing permafrost in Siberia, and how much methane (CH4) is being released as a result. Methane is 20 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide in terms of its greenhouse effects. Currently, millions of tons of methane are frozen in the permafrost in and near the Arctic circle - places like Siberia and Alaska. Places that have not thawed in tens of thousands of years. That methane has been effectively "locked up" - frozen - but now warming trends are releasing it into the atmosphere. The more methane that's released, the more the climate warms, and the more the climate warms, the more methane is released from thawing permafrost - on & on.
Humankind has not faced a dramatic planetary climate transformation of this nature in the 12,000 years since the end of the last Continental Glacial period (known as the Wisconsin glaciation in North America). Back then, there were not nearly as many Homo sapiens populating the world as we have today, and they were generally of a more nomadic nature, making it relatively easy to move around based on climatic changes, water levels, availability of food, etc.
There is no doubt in my mind that Global Warming (or Global Climate Change, Planetary Purgatory, etc, etc) is the most important issue that our generations (those generations living today) will face. When the choices made today could spell whether or not hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by rising waters across the globe - let alone many millions in this country - this is a crisis of proportions we are not as a world prepared to manage.
When weather patterns are likely to change so dramatically that severe droughts will be much more common, extreme heat waves - like the one in 2003 that killed thousands in Europe - will occur with regularity, mega hurricanes stronger than Katrina will be annual events, what will we, Homo sapiens, do in response?
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