Let me first introduce myself first. Being brought up a very sheltered life I accepted everything as true. If my teacher, priest, doctor, parents, scientist or President said it was so, then it was true. Until one day I realised that some of them were lying. Some of them were blatantly lying and others were honestly believing that they were telling the truth, but just like me they were taking other people’s word as the truth; they didn’t question. To cut a long story short, after some careful nurturing a new me was born. I became a skeptic or as Ralph would say, a cynic.
Recently George Monbiot (UK Guardian) posted on his blog about the supposed (my skeptic kicking in) relocation of the people of the Carteret Islands due to global warming. This little island with its highest peak being a mere 5ft above sea-level is slowly but surely becoming a victim of global warming as the water level is annually rising; causing flooding of crops, etc.
For some this is alarming, 2,600 people after all stay on this island but for others who stay 1000 miles away in their penthouse apartments it might not be. Some extremists even view it as something we deserve.
What interests me the most is the responses you usually read
Now questions can be asked about these findings. For example:
- Living on Earth is like sitting in a tub. If water rises 5 cm in one end, it should also rise 5cm at the other end. Not so?
- Are the Carteret Islands sinking or are the waters rising?
Without a doubt global warming is a problem, but if you based your truths on muddy foundations, the truth gets judged by it and until eventually it loses integrity.
Supporters of global warming should be vigilant against people with muddy facts, because it erodes the truth their foundation is built on and there is nothing left for them to stand on. Then the truth will no longer matter and we will be lost.
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Well, I did not grow up so sheltered – I questioned everything from the first. The issue of global warming has now been around for a good part of my adult life, and although I have never studied it I have listened to the debates for many years now. Is it possible that we can have put so much pollution, heat, and change into this earth system, and that there might be no repercussions? Is it possible that some of the changes we are alive to witness might have occurred, albeit more slowly, whether we were here or not, whether we had pumped quite this much CO/CO2 into the Earthsphere, whether we reduce emission amounts now or not? It’s so complicated, the biosphere as a single organism, what we do to a toe affects an eyebrow, cloud to plant, buffalo to butterfly. It’s not going to stay the way it is no matter what, on that we can all agree. Is it possible that we can resettle people w/out some loss of culture? Probably not. Maybe we can plan well, minimize that loss, and respect the culture, and people, to such an extent that they, at least, feel less burdened by their role in all this. Fabulous topic!
Great post and just loved you comment andy lee I wish I could be so well spoken to comment like you. I don’t think that changing where we live is going to make much of a muchness now its a little to late but starting to do our bit to prolong the effects may just help a little