Climate Change

I don't always listen to the news but recent articles have made me think about a few philosophical ideas revolving around this whole global warming situation, although now it's called climate change because as always, my front yard is covered in a foot off snow as opposed to a thick layer of green grass. I am not an expert in this topic but I don't need to be. I am looking at it from an argumentative side, deciding what is he strongest argument.

I took geography in university. I spent four years learning about glaciers, sediments, water flow, and the effects of roads on the landscape of cities. Only once was climate change discussed and that was when my professor explained that the earth warms and cools on a cyclical basis. It was based on science that the revolution of the earth around the sun changes and that our distance from the sun determines the earth's temperature. He went on to say that since coming to Ottawa he has dealt with numerous snow storms and he would have preferred there to be global warming since it's just a little colder here then in London, England.

There are really only two choices to make when deciding what exactly to do in regards to this phenomenon. We can either believe it is happening or believe that it is not. I don't want to get into the argument about facts versus mistruths. Recently it has come to light that truthful scientific research was hidden and that whole movies have been based on incorrect data. Let's just stick to the belief that climate change either is or is not happening.

So those are our only choices. We can't believe that it is sort of happening. There is no gray area. Either you believe that our earth's temperature is changing or it is not. Now here is the key to my argument. Based on those two choices we can do two things. There are two actions for each choice we make.

Let's take the belief that climate change exists. We can do two things about it. We can either do nothing and hope for the best, knowing that based on the data presented that a catastrophe will occur; glacial ice will melt, killing all arctic marine life; ocean levels will rise, flooding large areas of the world, and the heat will change the ocean's currents and create massive temperature changes. This will all happen if in fact climate change exists and we in fact do nothing to stop it. If this is true then there is no price tag on our safety as humanity. There should be no dollar figure on our ability to survive.

The other option is to put money into stopping those things from happening. We can spend money on emission controls. We can do research and help those living just above sea level in better preparing themselves for when the ocean levels increase. We can increase education so that everyone takes ownership of this problem. We can do a lot of things but we really do not know if those will help. There is no guarantee that pumping trillions and trillions of dollars into this cause will change the end result.

The other choice we can make is that climate change doesn't exist. That is a fair belief but takes more effort in reading the research and looking at the bigger picture. We can take into consideration that temperatures have dropped recently and when you look at the fifty and hundred year ranges there are no drastic "hockey stick" style charts. Things are moving along as expected. If climate change doesn't exist then if we do nothing we are not any better off then before. We are actually better off because we have no wasted valuable time and money on a cause that doesn't exist. If climate change doesn't exist and we do things then we are just wasting money, precious money that could be going to other things.

The argument for and against climate change is quite simple and really when you narrow it down we have an equal chance of suffering whether we do something or not. One option has us spending large amounts of money whereas the other doesn't. No one has yet proven that anything that humans do now will stop climate change from happening. It simply has not been proven so instead of throwing money away on a belief that scientifically can not be confirmed, we should instead be worried about more pressing issues.

And if in fact the world's temperature is steadily increasing at a rate that will affect us, then wonderful. I hate the cold and the snow and would love to wear shorts all year long. The money I would be wasting on paying for all these environmental initiatives can go to paying for laser hair removal. I mean if I'm wearing shorts year round I don't want to be wasting previous time shaving.