I became intensely troubled by the kind of legacy we are creating. My very best friend wrote in her dissertation about Justice as Fairness that we have a moral obligation to protect and preserve what we enjoy for the generations that will be living on Earth in decades or centuries to come.
When I mentioned that to an older professor at Assumption University in Bangkok, he kind of snorted and said, with a frown, "There won't be anybody left in a hundred years!"
Well, unfortunately, that's kind of what a lot of scientists are warning about.
What could possibly be wrong with what we're doing, that could cause the whole human race to perish? According to some scientists, if we continue pouring CO2 into the air, a nmber of "forcings" begin to occur. It's the old story, "One thing leads to another. . . ."
1. CO2 from electrical utilities, steel smelters, wild fires, cars, planes, locomoties, etc. pour into the air faster and faster as more and more people turn on the AC, the TV, the Mac, the PC, the electric range, and so on. That traps infrared (heat) energy that would normally reflect off earth and back into space.
2. Ice at the North Pole and elsewhere melts. If the Arctic ocean is not covered with white ice and snow, the light is not reflected back into space, but is absorved as heat by the cold Arctic waters. They are dark, and dark water absorbs light better than white ice and snow, so the northern oceans warms a little bit more each year. Warm water does not absorb and hold CO2 as well as cold water does. So less CO2 is absorbed, and some that is dissolved already is released. So we end up with more CO2 in the air. Not good. It traps more heat. It gets warmer.
3. Icy plants that have held methane clathrates (a combination of ice and natural gas) begin thawing out. It's happening all over Siberia, in Canada's far north, and Alaska. Methane rises because it's lighter than air. Oh-oh, methane is a worse "greenhouse gas" than CO2. So now we're adding methane from the tundra. That traps more heat. More CO2 and methane get out of oceans and tundra. It makes everything else warmer.
4. As it gets hotter, we need to turn on the AC more often. That uses coal and natural gas, which produce the electricity to run the ACs. The coal and gas produce CO2, so it gets warmer.
Are you seeing loops forming? "One thing leads to another, and another, and another. . . ."
So is climate change could be slowed down by governments passing "green" laws, and taxing coal and gas users to pay for solar energy systems, would it make sense to do that?
Scientists predict more and more violent storms, wildfires, droughts, water shortages, rising sea levels, and a lack of snow cover on mountains, where it tends to melt in summer and fill city reservoirs. But with warmer weather, we get less snow, less run-off, less snow pack, water shortages. Less irrigation of crops. Less food. Do you see a pattern? "One thing leads. . . ."
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