Dinosaur Lessons
I just read that the air temperature in the Arctic is at a record high.
According to the NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) autumn air temperatures in the region are at a record 9ºF above average.
Ice melting during the summer has been high and fits into a pattern that has been spotted since the sixties.
The report goes on to say that it is probable there will be even less ice next year. There is bound to be an impact on land and marine animals.
There are many guesstimates and projections on future effects but nobody really knows.
As I read this two things came to mind:
- Climate changes, either global warming or cooling, have happened many times before. With countless effects, both good and bad from our point of view. They are cyclical in nature. But we weren’t around at the time, at least in the numbers we are today. (I say at least because early man was around in the last ice age).
- Dinosaurs became extinct in a very short period of time and the theory is that some natural catastrophe created a major climate change.
Well, it looks as if we are in a hurry to provoke climate change - the worse part is that our hurry is fed through irresponsibility, selfishness and ignorance more than anything else.
From a geological and extremely long term point of view, things will regain their balance, though we really have no idea how out of balance things will get. We haven’t a clue what sort of world the next generations will inhabit.
The good news is that there is much more awareness of the environment than at any other time before, and this gives me hope we can reverse the damage we have caused, (although there is a risk that we may have reached the point of no return where natural forces start taking over under their own steam).
Can we learn from what happened to the dinosaurs?
At the end of the day that is a question that can only be answered by each individual.
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