I am one of the few people who actually welcomes the cold bite of the winter wind. I welcome the fall of a fresh snow as much as I love a sun-glistened beach on a warm summer day. I certainly am not one for dogmatism and, as such, don't hold any one season over the other. I love the changes and the new seasons and scenery they bring. I must admit, however, that I've been eagerly anticipating the final settling of the winter. This is in part because of the fact that I love the snow, snowboarding and hiking while the snow is covering the trail. Yet, on the other hand, I'm glad simply because it took so long to get here. Some of my friends joke that the prolonged warm season was because of global warming. Though it was a joke, I took to seriously thinking about the subject and, as always, went well off the deep end with it.
I eventually came to one question-are we pursuing and aggrandizing global warming because of our deepest drive to understand the complex and unimaginably amazing science behind the workings of our planet, solar system, galaxy, and universe? Or, like so many other endeavors, are we politicizing the subject, either way, because of our ideological dogmatisms? Obviously, there's no one answer, the world doesn't work that way. There is, however, a mountain of evidence to support the idea that the situation is falling heavily into the latter category. I've read as many reports as possible from as many officials as I can about their opinions on the subject and, contrary to where I stood before my research, I have to say I'm not convinced anymore that we're the prime cause of global warming. That is to say, I do not think the case is closed on the anthropomorphic global warming theory. Before you, the reader, dismiss me as a nut with no intelligence or insight, please read my case and research the information. To me, it seems that the entire science and occurrence of global warming demonstrates a beautiful and intrinsic connection throughout not only our world, but our solar system and our galaxy as well. I mean to say that this problem sheds light on something much more massive and monolithic, but something undoubtedly important to our understanding of the universe.
My problem is that the entire idea of CO2 being the driving force behind global warming has never been confirmed, only postulated. Climate models are built around these postulations and mathematically constructed in order to prove its causality. Evidence is gathered to support that particular side of the argument in a selective manner in the same way that all arguments are built. Indeed, with all of this information about such a connection, CO2 really may be the cause. However, what if the speculation is false? What would it mean and what could it hint at?
There have been so many times throughout history where, contrary to what is said, the temperature levels will rise and CO2 levels rise afterward. Indeed, as the temperature rises, the ocean begins to spout out more and more CO2. The ocean itself is the largest contributor to the gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere (nearly half of all annual CO2). Our industrialization is less than 5 percent of all the CO2 released annually. Just as interesting, the troposphere, where these gasses collect, is cooling down. The opposite should be expected if the warming were related to CO2. During the worst parts of our industrialization (wherein we poured more harmful pollution into the air than we do now) the temperature actually began to drop. You don't have to look back too far to see that not too long ago we were worried that the drop in temperature signaled the next ice age. That being said, I am most certainly not trying to make the case for fossil fuels. Our energy systems are quite archaic and depending on fossil fuels does not coincide with the long-term survival of the human species. Regardless of their connection to global warming, the systems we use are still a danger to our environment and ourselves. The energy is inefficient and comes at great expense. On top of that, it creates dependence on a fuel that is rapidly depleting and instigates a dependence on an economic basis, rather than a rational basis. We have the technology to move on and should do so, regardless of global warming. What I am trying to point out, however, is that there may be something larger and much more important going on. Something that requires us to let go of our dogmatisms and approach the subject with the drive to truly find the truth. The real question about global warming is whether or not the Earth is the nearly closed system we think it is, or whether there are much larger forces at work.
If this is the case, it may lead us to a myriad of unprecedented discoveries and a waterfall of new information. Such information could bring about a new age in human history ... our greatest discoveries have always been found by studying nature.
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