In the wake of the huge nor’easter that buried much of the East Coast, and considering our recent extended stretch of particularly frigid temperatures throughout much of the nation, it makes this writer and outdoor enthusiast wonder if something is, indeed, happening to what we perceive as “normal weather conditions?”
The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit held in Sweden has produced few unexpected agreements to reduce global pollution and slow climate change. Of course supporters of global warming theories and studies pleaded their cases, as did naysayers and supporters of global cooling via climate change theories and studies. But in the end, for each point, there was a counterpoint brought up by each side of the various debates. The problem is, no one really understands how all the many pieces must come together worldwide to accomplish anything truly worthwhile.
With so much emphasis being placed on climate change you'd think someone would start reemphasizing where common sense conservation enters the “big picture.” Certainly increased fossil fuel emissions have contributed, but let's not get tunnel vision that they are the lone cause. For solving one problem will probably never be the key in slowing climate change on this planet. Why? Because the changes we’ve placed on our Earth’s environments over the past century have just been too enormous.
Our human population has soared and will continue to grow, as have our needs to sustain it. Also the separation of wealth throughout the world has become so imbalanced that a very miniscule percentage consume the vast majority of our resources, at the expense of those who must supply it to merely survive. Throughout this, our world leaders have done more than their share to perpetuate the situation rather than attempting to solve it.
Take, for example, the move to create a “global economy.” This was heralded as the answer to creating a more level economic playing field for all. The result has been a transfer of employment from the once solvent areas to the less costly economically depressed areas, where the expanding opportunities created there have often caused a blatant disregard for the environment as a trade-off for the higher profits enjoyed by a few. And as these areas of sudden outsourced wealth enjoyed higher standards of living they too began to contribute to the environmental damage, and with the few or nonexistent environmental restrictions which had initially made them so attractive for outsourced manufacturing and other business, what damage was reduced in one area was more than compensated for in the relocated areas.
