Global Warming

The general concern about global warming, as highly publicized by the American former vice President, Al Gore, is that with the globe’s average temperature increasing, the ice caps and glacier ice in mountain ranges will over time melt. This melting eventually flows into the oceans which will cause a rise in the ocean level. A huge portion of the world’s population lives in coastal lowlands or along rivers, which will also rise in coastal areas.

The continent of Antarctica is covered by over 2 kilometres (1.3 miles) of ice. This is about 90% of the ice in the entire world and 70% of the fresh water. If it melts the oceans will rise around 60 meters (200 feet). Currently the average temperature on the continent is -37o, so far from melting. If Greenland’s ice melted we would see about 7 meters or 20 feet increase. The city of Bangkok in Thailand has over 8 million people. The average elevation of the city is 1.5 meters or 5 feet. Thus it would be submerged if Greenland melted. Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India has a population of almost 13 million. It sits on average 5 meters (17 feet) above sealevel. Thus a huge part of this city would be underwater.

Thus we see a huge impact worldwide if the sea levels do rise. So, the questions to consider are 1) are the sea levels on a consistent trend of rising; 2) are humans causing it; 3) if so, what should we do; 4) if rising but not as a result of human actions, what can we do?

Whether one believes in the evolution of the world over billions of years or the creation of the world approximately 6,000 years ago as the Bible indicates does not really matter. Both of these faith systems believe there was at least one, possibly more than one ice age in the past. If there was a global ice age then the temperatures were much lower at that point and thus the ice formed over much of the world. The world has been warming ever since as the ice sheets have receded to the Polar Regions and mountain ranges. Thus the world has been warming for thousands of years now. Global warming is nothing new. The rising of the ocean has thus also been happening ever since the ice started receding. In the past people in small communities could simply build their homes on higher and higher ground. It was not a big deal as homes were small, fairly easy to take down and move, or to leave and start over. There were no roads, power lines, sewers, none of the infrastructure we have today.

The NASA website http://climate.nasa.gov contains many charts. One shows the global temperature changes over the past 130 years. It shows a change of less than 2 degrees. Not much but the sharpest increase began in the 80’s. Will the trend continue? No one really knows. We do know the sun follows an 11 year cycle in increased and decreased output. This affects our global temperature.

To answer the first question “are the sea levels on a consistent trend of rising”, it appears they are but very slowly as the global temperature is slowly rising. There is speculation that the burning of fossil fuels increased what are called ‘greenhouse’ gases. These gasses keep the heat in the air and thus the temperature rises. If this is true then humans are contributing to the increased temperature as we cause these greenhouses gases with our vehicles, coal fired power plants and any other types of burning fuels.

But let us put this in perspective. Around the world today there are 1,900 active volcano’s. Some are continually spewing ash and gases into the atmosphere. Volcanic sulfur dioxide can be up to 10 million tonnes per day. This is far more than all the vehicles. Water vapor is the largest greenhouse gas. As the earth warms the air can hold more water vapor causing an ever increasing greenhouse effect. This is independent of vehicle emissions. Thus the answer to the second question “are humans causing it (global warming)?” is that we might be having a very small effect but nowhere near the effect media and some politically (or otherwise) motivated activists claim.

Third was the question “what should we do?” The Bible says right near the beginning that God created mankind and mankind was to take care of the world. We are polluting the world far more than we really need to. Burning fossil fuels in inefficient engines helps oil companies earn more profit as the engines need more fuel that they really do if designed better. We waste fuel by leaving vehicles idling, especially different kinds of service vehicles which can be left running for hours, needlessly. We waste all kinds of things. We waste time and money and fuel producing weapons to defend and destroy each other. Building weapons uses energy and it is 100% waste as we could all live in peace. Thus there are things we could do if we lived up to our God given mandate to care for this world.

Finally, the question ”if (sea levels) rising but not as a result of human actions, what can we do?” We cannot stop it if we did not start it. We cannot cool the planet. But, if we step back from the concern mentioned above about the flooding of sea level cities and look at the world wide result of global warming we can see some good things. As the cold climate recedes northward the northern land warms resulting in more usable land in Canada, northern Europe, Siberia. This could be true in Antarctica as well as the cold there recedes closer to the south pole, allowing other parts of that continent to warm. Then we can grow more crops. We can move people from the shoreline, moving father inland and thus away from the rising waters. There will be some loss of usable land as the tropic get warmer as well. We may see some increased deserts. But we may also see some new rain forest areas a little farther north and south.

This sounds daunting. How could we possible move a billion or more people? Let’s look back to a previous point about all the resources we spend, worldwide, on fighting and weapons production. If that effort and wealth were diverted to moving people, to building new cities, to taking seawater and creating clean water we would still save money. We would also build good will amongst our peoples as we work together on a common cause instead of squabbling over a piece of land or some raw materials.

There are lots of things we can do to better ourselves whether global warming is a real threat or not. If you have ever watched movies where the fate of the world is on the line, like Armageddon, Deep Impact, Independence Day or others, then you have seen what can happen when we work together. The real question is not the ones mentioned above but “do we have the will to solve the problem?”