I’m no scientist, and yet I can’t help but contain my excitement at the knowledge that one day, in the not too distant future, I could have beach front property right here in St. Louis.
And I can only wait with bated breath for the day that St. Louis will be the largest city on the new east coast. Confused about how this will come about? You shouldn’t be, because according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) there’s a 90 percent chance that the warming of the planet is taking place because of you-and me, and all humans for that matter. Forgive me if I don’t sound shocked, but it is not often that a theory keeps me from sleeping at night.
What a bunch of hooey. For every scientist on that panel, there are another 10 scientists ready to refute its findings. I know the argument is that the scientists who don’t put much stock in the global warming theory are being paid by big corporations-corporations that pollute our precious world with the burning of fossil fuels and illegal dumping, and who knows what else-but I honestly have a hard time believing that all scientists can be bought.
Global warming is a theory, and it is a theory that points to humans as being the primary cause of a miniscule rise in global temperatures over the past 100 years. One must keep in mind that humans, despite the fact that they are the supposed cause of the warming, are also the creatures that stand to lose the most if the predicted disastrous effects come about. This doesn’t seem to work out logically-why would humans actively destroy their one and only home? I suppose arguments could be made that humans aren’t always logical, but again I have trouble buying into that claim.
Judging by how scientists cannot seem to come to an agreement concerning their own research, the field is wide open to interpretation for what global warming is, if it exists and whether or not humans are the cause. My theory, which is, of course, unscientific and based on information that I have read and digested, and am now regurgitating with my own twist, is that the theory of global warming is just that: a theory.
For thousands of years, humans have been multiplying and destroying the world in which they live-even the Native American population altered the environment-and it is only now that Homo sapiens have decided to address the issue. It is too little too late to address the global atmosphere, because humans do not control the environment. I’m not advocating buying an SUV and blasting CFCs into the atmosphere. But humans play an insignificant role in the overall scheme of global climate change. Consider that, when a volcano erupts, it spews forth lava, ash and noxious gases and emits more chemicals and harmful “greenhouse gases” than all of mankind and its inventions emit in a year.
Ours is a world of constant change, and humans are semi-adaptable to that change. The atmosphere is not going to suddenly turn to acrid smoke that suffocates all living beings on the planet. As for those pesky glaciers that are melting at alarming rates? If that’s the truth of the matter, I wonder why, then, some glaciers are advancing and thickening, and why some areas of the world actually report a net temperature decrease over the course of a century and a half. These statistics make the situation-as Alice would say-curiouser and curiouser. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of glaciers on the planet; surely they’re not all going to up and vanish in a decade.
If the glaciers did suddenly vanish and the sea levels rose catastrophically-ever notice how many times you hear the word catastrophe nowadays? Can we say “fear mongering”?-I can only imagine that St. Louis would become the hot new place to live. Imagine the Arch with waves crashing at the feet of its Grand Staircase. Gateway to the West? How about Gateway to the United States? If you believe in the global warming theory, that name change might not be too far off.
Andrew C. Emmerich is a senior studying English and secondary education in the College of Public Service.
