Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Protecting Our earth

Global Warming is a scientific fact. Temperature readings from around the world and over a long period of time have been collected and analyzed. The average temperature of our earth is increasing. You cannot call that "BS".

Climate Change is more speculative. Rather than being a fact, it is a well developed theory, based on documented climate events.

The human origin of global warming and climate change is more speculative yet. Nevertheless, what other factors can we seriously propose as causes of these changes? Skeptics like to believe that human behaviors do not have that much effect on global phenomena. However, one of the classic examples of human impact is the presence of lead in the polar ice cap. When cores are drilled in the ice cap and analyzed, there is no lead found until around 1930s and then the amount of lead increases radically. It was in the 1930s that tetra-ethyl lead was introduced in motor fuels to solve the problem of "knocking". Auto engineers knew that it would be bad if the lead remained in the engines so they also introduced ethylene dichloride. Lead chloride is gaseous at high temperatures and takes the lead out the exhaust system of the vehicle into the atmosphere. Methane and carbon dioxide emissions are definitely a major result of our behaviors as well.

Perhaps we can all live with global warming, but climate change, if genuine, is a major problem. Agriculture, as one example, is hugely dependent on climate. A large part of California's economy is based on agriculture, thus alteration of California's traditional climate could have a major impact on our economy. Climate change can potentially make some parts of the world unlivable and cause major disruption of human life. Rising ocean waters are already problematic in some coastline areas.

It seems obvious to me that, if we can avoid damaging the earth, which is our home, we should do so. We did do away with lead in our gasoline. Perhaps we can also stop throwing so much methane and carbon dioxide into our atmosphere as well. Eat less beef; walk more (it's good for us); and use green energy when possible.

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