I won’t list actions to take or habits to get into that promote living “green”. Enough information already exists and interested people can find plenty of suggestions to be environmentally friendly with a simple search.
I will post about my experience with global warming. It’s a reality, and it’s happening. Here in
Lakes and rivers around my home were still flowing easily in liquid form by January. Usually, January has us driving our cars and trucks over ice bridges on rivers and setting up ice-fishing village communities out in the middle of frozen lakes. It seems the Northern United States had the same problem.
I realized at some point last winter that I haven’t been snowed in for a few years. When I was younger, it was common to have major snowstorms that held my family hostage until the snowplows passed by – sometimes that took three days of waiting. I’m kind of sad that my kids will never experience that amount of snow.
I think of the story of a polar bear struggling to survive in 2007′s seasonally warm temperatures. It still hurts my heart. The bear’s habitat, ice, literally melted. Lacking food to sustain its survival, the bear swam… and swam and swam and swam… He finally reached an island, oblivious media tracking him to report on his progress. Stranded on that island in the middle of nowhere, the bear starved to death. Read more about polar bears and their struggle to survive.
Even Autumn is different for me these days. When I was a young boy of eight or so, I ran Halloween in a t-shirt. For a few years now, I size my children’s Halloween costumes so that a snowsuit can fit underneath. A few years back, I spent an early October weekend trail guiding on horseback in a t-shirt. This year at the same time, my house heating is on almost continually and the thermometer shows temperatures barely above the freezing point.
I recycle religiously. I use “green” lighting and turn lights off when I leave a room. I cut energy consumption when I can. I walk into town instead of driving. I find small ways to save on electricity, to reduce my garbage, to reuse what I can.
But when I think of that polar bear, scared, hungry and alone, swimming for its life, I can’t help but wonder if I’m doing enough.
Ok, I wasn’t sure if I should email you and talk about stuff just between us or comment here. I decided to comment here because it’s an interesting discussion.
Personally, I’m not completely convinced that the main reason for global warming effects here on Earth are caused by humans, SUVs, cars, energy consumption, etc.
Not to say I don’t think we add to the problem, I’m sure we do, but while questioning this debate and doing some research for myself, I’ve discovered interesting data.
Did you know that we’ve only really been tracking weather patterns for just over 100 years? That doesn’t give us much data to compare as to how the Earth’s natural warming and cooling trends work.
Check out the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration website. In article here they show some statistics regarding weather patterns. According to them, 2008 temperatures for the U.S. was near average and in fact many times coldest since 1997. I know here in Vegas we had record snow fall in 2008.
In another article they show how from 1978-2004, 12 of those 26 years were substantially colder than normal.
What this says to me is that our messing with things can’t be responsible for both warmer temperates and colder temperatures. What we do know is the Earth naturally changes its own climate drastically. History has proved that. We even see warming trends and cooling trends on other planets in our solar system do to the fact each planet “wobbles” a little. That would explain the ups and downs in weather patterns.
Like I said though, I’m not against the whole global warming movement. We are definitely poisoning our environment and we are definitely not helping things along.
I dunno, what do you think? Sorry if I start a debate on a sensitive issue. I am all for the environment and am totally on board with clean air initiatives, I just have a habit of questioning big issues.
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