Deep Global Warming facts

A recent letter in the Royal Examiner laments that some folks don’t care for facts much these days and especially disagrees with those who hold their views without resorting to facts. He particularly calls out the “global warming band-wagoneers”, that according to his logic, disregard the teachings of Geology 101.

Geology has much to teach us. One of the hardest concepts to grasp is the concept of deep time; visualizing the age of the earth is not an easy lift. Billions of years of solar energy bathing our planet generated extensive life in the form of plants and animals. It is difficult to imagine the billions of years of converting that solar energy through photosynthesis, and the billions of years of the remains of that process being incorporated into the earth. The use of fossil fuels means the release of solar energy gathered from an almost unimaginable past. Fossil fuel energy consists of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

A previous article claimed that since ice sheets once covered New York, then the climate is always changing and since the climate is always changing, there is no urgency to address climate change. The author is content to acknowledge the scientific evidence proving that the climate varies while ignoring the scientific observations regarding the unprecedented pace of change that corresponds with the beginning of Industrial Revolution. A cursory search, for instance to the NASA site, reveals that global temperatures are increasing at an unnatural pace. We can measure the inexorable increase of CO2 and global temperatures, and we are living with the effects on rainfall, drought and increasingly intense storms.

The indiscriminate release of carbon into the atmosphere serves to trap the heat radiating and reflecting from the earth, upsetting the delicate stasis developed over millennia. In the oceans, some is reabsorbed, but not all, turning the oceans acidic, and creating problems for life in the seas. It remains to be seen what this uptick will do to plankton, a large source of oxygen production.

This rapid rise is tracked by examining rocks and ice deposited in the past. An overwhelming majority of scientists throughout the world agree about this. They also document the feedback loops caused by these changes. Sea and land ice are diminished, and ice that once reflected sunlight and heat now is gone. The oceans absorb more heat and sea levels rise, threatening major population centers. Thawing permafrost in northern areas releases greenhouse gases. The changes compound and intensify the effects.

The arrogance of a dwindling political party that professes to know best because their gut feeling tells them they are right, is blocking American leadership on this problem. They imagine that climate scientists warning against climate change form an international conspiracy. They take counsel from a handful of scientists denying human impacts whose research is supported by fossil fuel companies and claim they own the purest of intentions. The global risk is too great to have faith in magical thinking.

Steve Foreman
Front Royal, Virginia