Oct 20, 2007

An Inconvenient Lie

Okay, I'm going to get serious for a minute. I warned that I could talk about anything on my mind, and this is bigger than sports:



Last week, it was announced that Al Gore would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in informing the world of the ever-growing threat of ManBearPig. I mean, Global Warming. Whatever. Since this was in the aftermath of Homecoming, I wasn't sure I had actually heard this, but now that I know it happened, I felt the need to say something. I’m not saying that it is real, or if it isn’t, but I am saying that the planet has been around for well over 5 billion years, and has survived way more than we petty humans, and thinking that we can do serious damage to this little blue marble is the ultimate in human conceit.

The planet “Earth”, the silly name that we gave this little perfect oasis of life, has seen much worse than us in its existence. The planet has been through a lot worse than us, been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages. To think that we, humans, can hurt this place in only 200 years of heavy industry goes beyond conceit, and delves into psychosis.

Add into the fact that before recent years, we have had no dependable way to gauge the temperature of the planet until recently, and I have to call into doubt all the findings. I don’t know if its real, or not, and I don’t really care. My natural cynicism won’t let me be sucked into the hype of these claims, no matter how much I’m supposed to be. Sorry.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Palmer - I don't think anyone would argue against the idea that the planet will survive us. I think it's more a question of whether we will survive us, if that makes sense. -Smorz

Anonymous said...

I'm giving you the official "Mark Bradley" award for having to disagree with everything, including yourself.


I think you missed the whole point - it's that we want to let those natural occurrences be the only things that affect the earth. And if you really believe that burning 100 gagillion barrels of oil a year creates no significant change on anything you 1) are really W in disguise or 2) have never been to Denver.

Wright said...

I'm going to have to agree with Smorz's post. Yes, the planet has survived, obviously or we wouldn't be living on it right now, but whatever was living on it at the time of most of the topics you brought up, did not.

It also seems like a time issue I feel. Not an issue that what we have done with our time SO FAR has made sigficant changes, but that if we continue on the path we are on, what will happen over the next hundreds or thousands of years...

Anonymous said...

Spot on, young man spot on.