Just felt like sharing this, really, not really becoming an eco advocate but this was actually the first time in a while where I felt that writing was relaxing to me, despite the subject matter being otherwise.
On “Prehistoric Greenhouse Data from Ocean Floor Could Predict Earth's Future, Study Finds”
In an article found in the website Science Daily dated October 31, 2011, University of Missouri researchers have found that certain climate patterns indicated in the circulation of ocean dated from the Late Cretaceous period might be the key into predicting the current trends of climate change in our time.
This information intrigues me in that it supports an earlier discussion in class (notably the Daisy world experiment from the Gaia Theory) in which the cycles of warm and cold were brought up. While this study does confirm to my mind the essence of the daisy world simulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld), where everything is right with the world and we just need to sit back and wait to shrivel up from dehydration until the next alpha species comes along, (and according to something i watched on Discovery waaay back, they'll be squids.) it is rather alarming that in the article, it is mentioned that collectively we—as human beings—are able to match the climate conditions inferred from the fossil records of fish found during that period, meaning that the heating up of the planet that took millions of years to achieve naturally is being repeated in an accelerated rate by the activities of human society and our hummers within a short span of time. Somehow, part of me is proud of it like it was some Guinness World Record.
Research like this serves both as a warning and more importantly a step in the right direction in terms of formulating contingencies to climate change, by referring to what has occurred before and predicting where it could possibly lead. Having an understanding on how the planet regulates itself and how we can manage ourselves in the midst of this event, and ensuring that we can prolong our existence on the planet--however a bother it might be for everything else on this rock-- helps me sleep at night, amidst the constant possibility that the world might go kaput on me any day in my lifetime.
Work Cited:
University of Missouri-Columbia. "Prehistoric greenhouse data from ocean floor could predict Earth's future, study finds." ScienceDaily, 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 22 Nov. 2011
On “Prehistoric Greenhouse Data from Ocean Floor Could Predict Earth's Future, Study Finds”
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