Friday, December 26, 2008

Rush Limbaugh forgets we're a flash in the pan

We had a white Christmas this year, rare for Bellingham. Glad we can still have white Christmases occasionally.

Heard a spot from Rush Limbaugh yesterday morning on the radio. Saying global warming isn't so bad, it's happened before; like 14 million years ago as evidenced from fossils in Antarctica.

I say, yes, the Earth has warmed and cooled over millions of years, but humans have only been around for a short slice of Earth's history. Maybe it was warmer several million years ago.

Still, we're worried about the next hundred years because we plan to be here for that period of time.

We weren't here 14 million years ago so no one (that I know of) "sweated it" back then.

The next hundred years is pretty important to us.

If we figure out how to curtail our greenhouse emissions, the Earth might give us the next 500 years of stable climate. That's enough time for our civilization to continue flourishing.

If there's going to be another "naturally caused" global warming trend in a few million years, we've got time to plan for it.

Will we even be around then?

500 years is a short time for nature, but a long time for us.

Do we want to bring on global warming now, just because we know it might happen again in a few million years?

That's kind of like saying, "cross in front of traffic now cause you know you'll be dead in 200 years."

Sure we've had ice ages and periods of warming over the millions of years, but there weren't ski resort operators looking at the sky wondering if snow is in the forecast so they can pay their debt on the new ski lodge.

In the next hundred years, the ski resorts and farmers are among us. We can't stand hearing them bitch.

Maybe, in less than 500 years, we'll be a space faring civilization anyway (if we're still around). Then we might not be so worried about Planet Earth. In 500 years, we might be elsewhere.

500 years is merely a flash in the pan compared to millions and billions of years, but these next years are important to us.

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