The Truth About Global Warming.

Chemical Valley produces one-fifth of the air pollution in Ontario.

by Louis B. Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved
‘Global warming’ is a bad label. Global warming can’t be verified, except over the long term.
And then of course it might be too late.
We’re talking about photochemical changes to the atmosphere.
This includes something on the order of 387 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide.
According to Wikipedia, this is 36 % higher than the 1832 Antarctic glacial core samples which showed that the atmosphere had once held about 284 ppm of CO2. This era is described as more or less coinciding with the industrial revolution. What it does not take into account is other historical perspectives.
During the 13th century, and again in the late Middle Ages, England and Europe were denuded of forests, because of better farming methods and rapidly growing population levels.
Simply put, they cooked and heated their homes with firewood. Many industrial applications used firewood as an energy source. The desertification of parts of Persia, large parts of Asia and India, and the Sahel of North Africa also happened at the same time as pastoral peoples moved in with their flocks and habitations. If you read the Wikipedia article carefully, you will see that the northern and southern hemispheres neither contribute equally to CO2 emissions, nor absorption from natural causes. What this certainly implies, is that data acquired by studies of air bubbles trapped at various levels in Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets may not be true of the globe as a whole. There were clearly regional and seasonal variations in, ‘natural CO2 levels,’ i.e. those emissions not generated by human beings. Other causes include forest fires, volcanoes, etc.
None of this fits into a thirty-second sound bite. It is stated in the article, that in the past, CO2 levels may in fact have been higher than they are now. First, natural vegetation such as trees, meant that the natural solution had already been provided, whereas now all major world forests are under extreme threat from commercial interests. In North America, ninety to ninety-five percent of forest reserves are gone. Secondly, since the dawn of time, CO2 levels may in fact have fallen sharply over geological time-scales. The Earth was all rock and volcanoes at first—it was only when photosynthesis began to take place with the rise and evolution of green plants that the atmosphere began to stabilize into something that could support human life.
If pressed to take a wild guess, I would say that 185 ppm would be more like, ‘normal,’ whatever that means in a geological time scale. This increase happened quite rapidly. It’s accelerating out of control. The trouble with air bubbles in ice-caps, is that the farther down you go, the fewer the bubbles. The sheer weight of ice means no bubbles. At some point you get to bedrock. That’s because the ice has formed since the beginning of an ice age. The record only goes back so far, so we’re only looking at thin slice of time. We need other types of scientific investigation, in order to get a better picture of CO2 levels going back ten thousand years at a time, in ten thousand-year increments, all the way back for six billion years!
Only then will the data make complete sense.
Most citizens accept that global climate change is real. The ones who don’t accept it are all corporate interest groups, interestingly enough; allied with Christian Fundamentalist groups who are opposed to the theory of evolution. It’s like global warming contradicts the Creation, or something. I have to concede, there really is nothing on global warming in the Bible, which is the divinely revealed Word of God.
But if you honestly believe that the world is only a little over 6,000 years old, then all the data is just crazy. Now, if you took twelve Christian Fundamentalists and put them in a jury box, and filled their heads will all kinds of scientific, forensic and psychological testimony, the likelihood is that they would convict any accused person.
Now let’s keep them in that jury box for a moment, and hand them all the evidence; both damning and exculpatory, regarding global warming. What verdict will they come up with?
What about the oil and auto companies? What about the, ‘clean coal,’ and nuclear people?
What’s their objective opinion?
The Canadian federal government seems to be quite schizoid about global climate change, but then they’re just a little bit, ‘off,’ on most things these days. It’s just that they want to sell tar-sands oil to the U.S. so badly. It affects their bourgeois thinking to a certain degree.
All of a sudden we’re having a mild winter, and it’s, ‘global warming.’ Tomorrow it might snow, and this somehow casts doubt on the whole thing. This is not about dubious e-mails of whatever provenance. It’s not about interest groups, and left-versus-right. It’s about the survival of the human race, and every living thing on this planet.
In that sense, it really is a struggle of good versus evil.
The truth about global warming is that we’re living in an ice-age. The fact that our own personal ice-age is somehow different from the last one, (which I admit was a doozie,) makes no difference to the logic. We evolved into our present form during an ice-age.
The glaciers are retreating. No matter what fuzzy teachings you may have retained from your elementary-school science studies, it really doesn’t take two million years for species to evolve. Species can go extinct in fifty years, perhaps less. Hundreds of species in North America went extinct in the course of fifty or a hundred short years of human ignorance; for example journalists with integrity. Those species that did not go extinct in quickly-changing conditions, must have evolved, in a very short time. (If nothing else their behaviour evolved. My logic is irrefutable.)
The human beings around you evolved to their present state since the last big ice age, twelve to twenty thousand years ago. They might go extinct in the next fifty to one hundred years.
It is quite possible the human race will evolve to meet the new environmental niches that open up to them. This will have to happen within the next three to four generations, considering a generation to be about twenty-five years.
I don’t know what that generation of mutants will look like, but surely they will be adapted to high levels of solar radiation, bad water, bad air and bad soil, (and bad coffee.) They’ll be able to tolerate high levels of heavy metals, and radioactive waste in the environment and groundwater.
They will be immune to long-chain molecules closely resembling female hormones in nature and effect, they’ll be able to tolerate long periods of drought, and the paucity of prey items on the menu. They’ll adapt to eat whatever’s out there. They’ll adapt to social conditions such as a lack of truth and accountability, dangerous and out of control governments, rule by small-minded business interests, who can’t see past next qarter’s bottom line. They’ll be adapted to a high-crime environment! They’ll be the only ones left.
The U.S. and Canada recently agreed to tougher new standards for auto emissions. The idea is that it will force consumers to purchase more efficient vehicles, perhaps even electric cars. At one time both Toyota and BMW announced that they would have hydrogen-powered vehicles available in 2010. But it should be noted that mainstream (i.e. ‘tame,’) news reports mentioned the Chevrolet Volt. Interestingly enough, the Canadian government owns about 80 % of GM right now. I haven’t been following too closely as far as the U.S. is concerned, although I do watch CNN. It’s been quite interesting to watch the media systematically bashing Toyota. It’s almost like they have an interest in the outcome—which we all in fact do. They can’t bash BMW’s because they all drive one! It might undermine their credibility. (The big automakes have since paid it all back, at least in the U.S., according to mainstream media. That's because of their fear of change, and regulation. They'll do anything rather than build an efficient vehicle.)
In Canada, the auto workers are definitely members of the bourgeoisie; and of course all the big shots as well. The government has a lot invested in those people. Those people are too fat to starve, apparently, while the disabled aren’t worth bothering with; except when it comes time to slash some red ink and balance the books.
As a philosopher, I applaud the experiment. It’s good to know the corporate plutocrats believe in their vision of social Darwinism. I wonder how fast those guys can adapt. Purely academic, really. Yes; I’m just a hungry little varmint, tearing into the vitals of an aging, decrepit, creaky old dinosaur-carcass. I’m omnivorous, Baby, and real hot-blooded. And I like it.
Looks like bronto-burgers again tonight. It could be worse, eh?