A quick alternative to climate change alarmism
President Obama, meeting with his fellow world leaders in Paris, has urged them to reach a deal to limit global warming before the planet is doomed. Obama once again stated that "glaciers in Alaska are melting at a pace unprecedented in modern history." What he neglected to say, or doesn't know, is that the glaciers are melting in places where they are currently being measured and growing exponentially in other places. Polar bears aren't drowning; they are starving, because they can't get through the thick ice packs.
The leaders are trying to reach an accord by December 11 to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over a specified period of time. These world leaders are actually doing nothing other than making themselves feel better and perhaps putting the world at more risk than it is currently. What if they're wrong?
How are world leaders with little or no scientific experience going to limit the warming of the planet or change the climate? Regardless of what the MSM says, the scientific community is still fighting over whether or not global warming is really happening. This is what happens in a world where the climate isn't predictable by computer modeling using current data. Our recorded data is but a blip on the age of the Earth, and we don't have data going all the way back in time. Years ago I was on Cape Cod and saw the peaks of houses that had at one time been waterfront. They are probably totally gone by now. The water and terrain shifted, and while land was eradicated from one side of the Cape, it was added to another. This is how our world works.
I have a different perspective on climate change in the world. Maybe it's because of my nursing and IT background.
Why are we trying to change the probably unchangeable and not planning for the "what ifs"? Who is working on a disaster or contingency plan? Every hospital and IT department and many more companies plan for what to do in a disaster. They have very detailed plans for every contingency they can imagine. Why isn't the world doing any planning other than trying to reduce the carbon footprint, which isn't guaranteed to work, except in some computer models?
Let's put those computers, scientific minds, and money to a better use. Figure out which crops would be likely to fail if the global temperature did indeed increase. Which crops would be likely to fail if the temperatures fell precipitously? If the temperature did increase substantially, there would be more stress put on electrical grids due to increased usage of air conditioning. How would we cool anything if electric grids went down? The same is true for heat. How would we survive constant freezing temperatures?
Instead of limiting carbon output, let's put those resources to work developing new food sources that would grow in either scenario, to alternate sources of energy or better usage of current energy sources. Look for better ways to store large food stores and other necessities. Otherwise, we might find ourselves living in caves in another ice age or eating one another like in the 1973 film Soylent Green.
Claire (Hawks) Hawksley is a gray-haired granny, retired from both her nursing and IT careers. She may be reached at chawks60@comcast.net.