It was an ordinary day. Sitting in the waiting room at Dermatology Associates anticipating what Dr. Lucking may find during my six month visit. I was one of only four patients waiting in the multi-doctor practice and had no idea how long it would take before I would be summoned to disrobe for my examination. So...I grabbed the nearest magazine and began to leaf through it. The August 5, 2019 edition of Time Magazine had a multitude of fairly short stories about just about anything and everything, but the one that caught my eye was a story titled "Is this summer's intense head caused by climate change?" Now, if you have been following the national news you probably know that according to the President of the United States, global warning is just a hoax and has no scientific facts to back it up. I'm sure that many feel the same way, but for me.....well, there just has to be some reason why climatologists describe what they call new norms in global temperatures. When thinking about climate change you must broaden your thinking and don't think just about your local community or even state. You have to see what is happening all over the globe. As I looked at the story I read that one climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that "We now have a new normal, we are in a new warmer climate. Just in the 21st century, we've set a new global world temperature record five times." Pretty shocking to me! We are only 1/5 of the way through the century and a new record for warmth has been broken five times.
My grandkids may have to live in an environ- ment where most summer days may reach 100 degrees or even worse, more of the polar ice cap may melt which in turn will not be able to reflect the sun off the earth's surfaces and thus make our world's oceans warmer which will in turn kill more marine life and....well the chain goes on and on and on. But yet, some people think this is all a hoax! It is a fact that in Antarctica, sea-ice coverage in June of this year was 8.5% below the 1981-2010 average, and in the Artic it was 10.5% below. Why would anyone make up this stuff? But, our President keeps telling us all these studies and reports are fake. A report in the Environmental Research Communications predicts that states along the Gulf Coast will see more than 120 days a year that feel like 100 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century. That's almost a third of the year! Can you imagine how many more dermatologists will be needed to handle all the cases of skin cancer caused by weather like this. And, 2019's above average rainfall in parts of the United States has been attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases and that will continue until we humans get our heads out of our butts and find a way to change our behavior and stop modifying the atmosphere.
You do realize we can do that, but only if our government takes the initiative and sets standards that can stop modifying the atmosphere. The rest of the world is working on it, but not with enough urgency. Right now there are more than 180 countries that have ratified the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The USA isn't one of those at present. The USA is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse-gas - after China! We were part of the agreement until 2017 when our President withdrew the USA from the agreement. Many foreign scientists believe the world can meet the challenge, but our country must be part of the solution instead of the problem as we now are. Ask yourself how you can be part of a solution to make the world a safer place for your future generations instead of a problem. I know what I plan to do! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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| Can your children, grand-children and great grand- children continue to survive in a world like this? |
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| The ice caps are melting!! |
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