We Can’t Do Much About The Weather, But We Could Try
By
Leonard Zwelling
You have to be impressed. Things are getting Biblical.
The fires in Maui were of epic proportion and the freak tropical storm sweeping up the west coast was accompanied by an earthquake. Somebody must have pissed God off.
That somebody is all of us.
I have had debates about climate change with the deniers who insist what we are seeing is just a normal cycle in Earth’s lifetime. Maybe. But the cycle seems to be getting worse and doing so in my lifetime. The timeline for this being a natural occurrence is too short.
So, let’s take the long view.
If the current streak of bad weather from hurricanes, to tropical storms, to tornadoes, to fires is all just what has happened for centuries, then there is nothing man can do to alter this reality. I know there are those who believe this. I don’t, but I respect those who do.
The contrary thinking harbored by most climate scientists is that much of these disasters have been made worse by man’s abuse of the environment and that it is not too late to lessen the impact on our future and of that of our children.
If one or the other is true, you are left with a choice.
You can either throw up your hands and say there is nothing that can be done and that we all may be doomed like T-rex or you can do everything that you can to shift from fossil fuels, eating meat, and stripping rain forests in an attempt to save the planet.
Choice one will have to suffice if this seeming outbreak of Old Testament doom is just natural. But, if choice two is right and humans have contributed to climate change as all of the evidence suggests, we need to do all we can now to save the planet.
Personally, I’ll go with two knowing that it’s the least destructive and has a chance at success. I am quite sure sticking our collective heads in the sand is a bad idea. I think that a concerted effort to use wind and solar power, to bring back nuclear power, and to shift to all electric vehicles might make a difference. If it does nothing, we are not worse off, but if we do nothing and we have caused the fires, and the storms, and the droughts, then everything will get worse and will, eventually, die.
I’ll go with door number two.
Not doing anything is a poor choice. Trying is the best we can do and it may even be enough
Dr. Zwelling’s new novel, Conflict of Interest: Money Drives Medicine and People Die is available at:
barnesandnoble.com,
on amazon if you search using the title and subtitle,
and
directly from the publisher Dorrance at: https://bookstore.dorrancepublishing.com/conflict-of-interest-money-drives-medicine-and-people-die-pb/m
2 thoughts on “We Can’t Do Much About The Weather, But We Could Try”
Most climatologists believe we are actually emerging from an ice age, so things are going to get warmer no matter what. There really should be no argument about “if” the world is warming; it’s happened before and it’s happening again.
But there are easily 2 compelling reasons to accelerate the research for alternative energy sources instead of hydrocarbons that have nothing to do with climate temperature-
a) hydrocarbons are the source of carbon fiber, the structures of the future. We should be conserving them (recall they take quite awhile to develop!). Our descendents will be dismayed how we just burnt it up.
b) Air pollution. Health. When I started oncology in the early 80s, only around 3% of lung cancer patients had no kind of exposure to cigarette smoke (primary or secondary). Nowadays 40 years later, that figure has easily doubled to 7%, & that’s a conservative estimate. This in spite of the fact that cigarette use has fallen to below 15%, an all time low (at least in the USA). We recognized the dangers of water pollution, now for our kids and grandkids it’s time to face up to what we breathe.
Fully agree