In the Northeast the cold seems to finally be subsiding, giving way to warmth and Spring. Many would think such a prolonged and bitter Winter is proof that global warming is overblown or incorrect. It should be clear by now that global warming makes seasons more intense instead of eliminating any cold weather all together.
Yet, there is a still a large portion of the United States population, and elected officials, that have made up their minds: “It’s cold out, the seasons are acting normally”.
It’s odd, you would think most of those people are used to believing in something thats not always seen. Such denials are so widespread and evident that there must be tons of scientific and scholarly research to back up such claims. Of course there is not. The graph below shows just how harmonious the academic community is in regards to global warming.
Evidence Over Intuition:
Science thrives on disagreement and revision, but that does not exist in the field of climate change. Business Insider details how the graph that proves such a notion was constructed.
The creator, James Powell, is an MIT-trained geochemist, college professor, and served as a member of the National Science Board under Reagan and Bush Sr. His methodology encapsulated searching for all published studies in 2013 that mention keywords like “climate change” and “global warming” which yielded 10,885 papers. Of over ten thousand papers, only two from 2013 stated that global warming wasn’t a man made problem. Those sort of numbers are staggering. As Business Insider puts it, that’s a split of 99.99-.01%. You hear of disputes in the scientific community over these subjects, but that is a downright lie meant to coerce the gullible into avoiding the facts. Science has made up its mind.
Too Big To Deny:
In the past decade, Hollywood has produced enough movies depicting a post-apocalyptic Earth that one should have no trouble conjuring up the images of barren wastelands. In a study funded-but not endorsed by- NASA, author Safa Motesharrei makes the claim that our society is facing the same collapse scenarios that brought down the great empires of the past. It is known how certain societies like the Roman Empire and the Mayans came to their end but now a model has been constructed to show us our future.
All complex societies are impermanent and their destruction is based off of an imbalance. According to Motesharrei there are two key issues that cause societal collapse. They are the “stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity” and the “economic stratification of society into Elites and Masses” (as a side note, the methodology is fascinating and is worth checking out).
The wealth gap will be covered extensively in the future but the resource crisis needs immediate review. If a society cannot feed itself in the present with no viable technology to produce food in the future, than disintegration is imminent. Global warming’s disastrous effects on arable farm land, impact on animal species as part of ecosystems, and reliance on cheaper, more unhealthy methods of food production, fits this resource scare perfectly.
The end times are not here yet because the study does not give a timetable, but don’t get complacent. The paper insists that it is not too late to change our ways and ward off extinction. This is far more possible to humans in 2014 than previous generations because of our abundance of technology. History repeats itself but we can ward off past mistakes by inventing, investing, and invigorating the scientific community to keep humans prospering into the future.
It is in this arena that America can once again lead the world. While we are behind other advanced countries in measures of sustainability, it is not too late. The tides have been turning lately, perfectly setting up President Obama to push for another legacy project. Russian aggression leads to avoiding foreign oil. Consumer demands for cleaner food helps put resources in perspective. Clean energy sources have never been cheaper. America has rescued the world before when calamity struck, lets hope we do so again before it’s too late. For the deniers out there, why not go down swinging?
Lazy Activism 