Part 1

OK, I’ll throw out some random thoughts on the subject and you guys can jump all over me and tell me what an idiot I am for even thinking it…

- Climate Change: What is the ideal climate? Was it the climate during the Ice Age? During the Medieval Warming Period? Does the answer depend on who you’re talking to? If I was a whale, I would like more ocean to swim in, if I was a snake I would welcome the warmer temps.

-What is better for life overall, a warming planet or a cooling planet? Didn’t life here on earth begin in a warm region?

- CO2, CO2, CO2: Everyone’s talking about all of the increasing CO2 in the air and that we need to reduce it (if you in fact believe that increased CO2 leads to higher temps). How? As a scuba diver, I’ve noticed that re-breather technology is at the point where it’s commercially available to recreational divers. A re-breather removes all of the CO2 from my exhalations so I don’t die. Why can’t we do that on a much larger scale?

- More CO2: How much human produced CO2 is sent into the atmosphere in a year? How much CO2 is released into the air by a single volcanic eruption? Isn’t that like trying to empty a bathtub with a eyedropper while someone is using a fire-hose to fill it up?

-Modern Wimps: Did you know that the British Isles weren’t always islands? Early man, used to be able to walk from what is now western Europe to what is now the UK. Eventually however, the seas rose at such a tremendous rate that the English channel was created. What caused the rapid rise? Was it high amounts of CO2? And how did early man survive this brutal environmental change with tiny brains and wooden tools?

-Science Project: Take a piece of paper and draw a time-line that represents the age of the Earth (about 4.5 billion years) with 1” equaling 10,000 year increments (ok, you’ll probably need a lot of paper). Now, take your pen and draw a set of markers on this your Earth time-line that represents the length of time that man has been putting CO2 into the atmosphere. You want me to believe that we’ve pumped that much CO2 into the air in the relatively short amount of time to even make a dent?

Recycle is Religion: Is it more environmentally friendly to recycle a plastic bottle or just throw it into the trash? If you recycle it, how much energy is required to transform the bottle into something else? Somebody needs to come by and pick up the bottle (in a truck I assume) haul it to the recycling plant large machinery is needed to unload, move and process this bottle. People are required to sort this stuff and manage the plant. That requires offices with computers, air conditioners, etc. What about the people themselves? They require energy (food). What are all the by-products of burning the fossil-fuels to do all of this (power the truck, generate the electricity to run the machines, etc.)?