Thursday, February 9, 2017

Flat-Earthers


Day 119 (caught up - backdated posts below): If I had a dollar for every person who has said to me, "I think the scientists are wrong about global warming. Look how much more snow we had last year," I could retire quite happily and live off the interest, so I'm going to give a very simplified explanation for those of you who are being deceived by your eyes. If you don't "get it" after this, I wash my hands of you.

There is a lot of water on this little blue marble we call home. It's in oceans and lakes and rivers, and it's also in less obvious places like glaciers and ice fields. When the weather is warm and dry, a portion of this surface water evaporates and is held in the atmosphere. The higher the temperature goes and the drier it gets, the evaporation rate increases. When temperatures cool again, that moisure condenses and falls back to Earth as rain or snow. This can and does occur regionally as a perfectly normal process. When it occurs on a global scale, we see more record events and "super-storms." That is what is occurring at the present time: a deviation out of the range of normal cycles. Our glaciers and ice fields are diminishing, and sea level is rising as the water which was once stockpiled as ice is carried aloft and re-deposited in liquid form.

My tolerance for willful ignorance and the "flat-earth mentality" of certain sectors of our population is at an all-time low presently. Even if you choose not to "believe" in global warming (man-caused or natural), wouldn't it be better to err on the side of caution and look at what we can do about it instead of greasing the skids?

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