Climate Change and our Short-Sighted Perspective

In recent weeks and months, it seems like the topic of Climate Change has gotten to be more and more difficult to ignore as it has not only shown up in the form of new reports like this one by David Spratt and associates in Australia, but also in the form of what seems to be record-setting numbers of tornadoes and floods in the Midwest this year (though, you don't see any weather-people making the association on any mainstream news).  To top that off, we have the beginning of what will most likely be another devastating fire season here in California - I can't wait to breathe all of the smoke from that in the coming months (it tends to drift down to us in Fresno).

Just some of the recent news articles found on Google News

At this point, if you are someone who is still saying that Climate Change isn't real or that it isn't man-made, that's probably because someone is paying you to say so... In which case, I would like you to please go get a spoon and shove it into your eye right now... okay, yes... that's better.  Thank you.

Anyway, upon reading the Vice.com article I mentioned above earlier this week, I found that I was in a bit of a funk.  Yes, even the author admits that the predictions that they set forth for the next 30 or so years are on the worse side of the scale, but that's just it... they are  initially only talking about the next 30 years.

Earth in the Year 3100?

It seems like whenever any person or organization talks about Climate Change, they only talk about the next few decades or possibly the end of this century, and I find that to be a bit short-sighted... perhaps the more appropriate word would just be "selfish".  As humans, we tend to only think about the plight of ourselves and our immediate children.  I get it.  It's just instinct.  However, it's not like the oceans are going to rise and then things are magically going to fix themselves after the year 2100.  Even if we manage to keep warming to a modest 2 or 3 degrees Celsius by that time, it seems likely that global temperatures will continue to climb and that the ensuing problems will likely compound themselves for many centuries (and possibly millennia) to come.  Why?  To reiterate, many scientists agree that there are a few major factors that could each be a "point of no return" in themselves.  Namely, the melting of the ice at either pole and/or the Greenland ice sheet.  Not only do you have the issue of rising sea levels, but you also lose the effect of light/heat being reflected back into space, as well as the release of methane that has been trapped in the ice for eons (Methane has a greenhouse effect that is roughly thirty times that of Carbon).  Some have theorized that if all of this were to happen, we even risk kicking off a "Runaway Greenhouse Effect", which would wind up with Earth gradually getting to the point where it looks more like our stellar neighbor, Venus, with surface temperatures and atmospheric pressure at such levels that not even reinforced satellites could withstand them for more than a few minutes.


To most people, I know this probably sounds a bit crazy.  Well, maybe we all need to think about this a little more?  It could be a worst-case scenario, but it's still a possibility.

Oh, and here's another thing that is usually a separate topic altogether.  If the proper humans aren't still around in a few hundred years to maintain them, what happens to all of the nuclear power plants and the waste that they have produced in the future?  Could the planet potentially see dozens of Chernobyls/Fukushimas with nobody around to do anything about them?  Food for thought.

Sleep tight.