I would like desperately to debate with Mr. Gore about this Global Warming phenomena which is so much in the news. Al and I are only a year apart in age so I know he remembers while attending elementary and junior high school being told the earth is headed for another ice age. What has caused this turn-around in both thinking and climate?
I believe we are simply in a cyclical phase of earths history. After all, reason would tell anyone who would listen that if the world did not warm up periodically then all nations would be encased in thick layers of ice and the so-called ice ages would have never ended.
Take for example the fact that scientists have found flowers and greenery in the stomachs of those hairy beasts of yore called Mastodons. They inhabited places such as Antarctica which according to climate studies and ice core samples determined were sub-tropical when these creatures existed.
When the meteor wiped out the dinosaurs it sent up a dust cloud into the atmosphere which plunged the earth into an arctic winter that lasted for decades. The same thing happens when violent volcanic eruptions occur world-wide. The ash belched high into the stratosphere has been known to interfere with weather patterns as well as aviation.
Scientists believe that at one time the world consisted of one super-continent, Pangaea, which is why when looking at a global map the coasts of several continents look like they could fit together like a jig-saw puzzle. Due to Continental drift and oceanic currents the individual continents drifted – some toward the equator where it is always hot, others to colder climes.
It should be noted that in snow covered places like Antarctica the suns rays are reflected off the white starkness and back into space. There is also the phenomena that occurs where there is six months of darkness and six months of sunshine. While on a cruise to Alaska I saw this first hand. The plants were of gigantic proportions and the blueberry’s the size of concord grapes. In New Zealand, an island nation extremely close to the Arctic Circle I saw the sun come up at 8:30 and be gone by 4. While in Alaska the sun rose at 3 and did not set until midnight. Both of these trips were experienced in June.
I do not believe our puny human race has had an impact on global temperature any more than we influenced the demise of the dinosaurs. I believe the world’s population is being mislead by the likes of Al Gore and the United Nations and as in other cyclical changes, humans will adjust or become extinct.
