This week in Sweden...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is
coming to town and with it, their fifth assessment report on climate change.
The hope is to brief the leaders of the world of the global
temperatures and rising sea levels and what to expect in the coming years.
Apparently the IPCC’s track record is a little tarnished by
not having correctly predicted the lull in rising temperatures and so have
brought even more doubt to the table than is most likely healthy for the planet
in the long run.
Even though America experienced the hottest summer on record
and the arctic is melting at a rapid speed which is most likely going to result
in an ice free summer in a couple of decades, we are still questioning human
involvement as the cause of our current predicament.
We know for a fact that currently, oceans are rising at an
average of more than 3 millimeters, or 0.12 of an inch, per year. Which is a
pace that is significantly faster than the average rate over the last several
thousand years, according to scientists.
The warming of the oceans is what keeps the sea levels
rising, but what concerns me even more is the affect this will have on the
ocean currents. The currents transport warm and cool water over the entire
planet like a conveyer belt, which plays a dominant part in determining the
climate of many of the Earth’s regions and with it controls the agriculture as
well as the dispersal of many life forms, on land and in the sea.
Say, the climate change is truly on a hiatus, as some scientists
want us to believe, wouldn’t it be wiser to use this precious time and see it
as a gift, rather than fight over who is right and who is wrong for the
umpteenth time, and actually do something to change the course we are headed
on?
Is it too idealistic of me to hope that we could come
together as one people wanting to ensure our life quality on this planet for as
long as possible? To put aside the ego and money questions and simply do what’s
right and productive in the long run?
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