Taking Care of Mother Earth

In the October 11^th issue of The week Magazine (only found with a subscription), an article on climate change caught my eye. Scientists are now 95% certain that the effects of greenhouse gas emissions are driving the climate change. “Humans are warming the planet,” said Brad Plumer in WashingtonPost.com, just as surely as “smoking causes cancer.” So we can throw away the notion that the world’s climate is cyclical and that it’s natural to endure a “heat streak” of some sort. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has set a limit of 1,000 gigatons 

in total carbon dioxide emissions before we reach a potentially dangerous and irreversible phenomenon. Without serious changes in the near future, we could surpass that mark within the next 25 years.

Now, although we haven’t encountered the apocalyptic scenarios promoted by Al Gore, and the temperature of the earth hasn’t risen as much as the IPCC climate-change models had anticipated, the signs of a changing climate are evident. Storms have increased in intensity, rain and snow patterns have changed, the ocean has become more acidic, the list goes on (more seen here). Rather than government reforms and forking over billions more dollars in an effort to reduce the amount CO2 we emit on a daily basis, it is imperative that we fund basic energy research. The day that clean, renewable energy becomes cheaper than oil will be the day in which we can reverse the trend, and get Mother Earth back on her feet.