Global Warming or Just More Hot Air?

fossil fern

Here is a picture of a beautiful fossil I found in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia.

This fern grew and died in a tropical jungle right here in Nova Scotia over 350 million years ago. Between its germination and the time I picked up its fossilized remains, this small bit of the earth has gone through some astonishing changes.

Here is a quick overview: 350 million years ago Nova Scotia was covered with thick, tropical, swamp forests.

It was the Carboniferous Age when the thick coal beds were laid down that are still mined today.

The province itself was a lot closer to the equator and slowly drifting toward its present position.

 100 million years later saw the Age of Dinosaurs. Many significant dinosaur fossils have been found here.

5 million years later saw the first of a series of extinction events: One at 245 million years ago another at 208 million years ago and a major extinction event at the beginning of the age of mammals, around 66 million years ago.

Nearly 65 million years ago is when the continents were near to their present shapes and locations.

Nova Scotia’s climate was hot and temperate. Around 4 million years ago the ancestors of man, mammals known as Hominids begin to appear on another continent far from Nova Scotia. The climate continues to be hot and temperate until just under 2 million years ago when we enter an Ice Age.

As far as I know, no one has actually declared the last Ice Age to be over quite yet.

I think that when I consider the current news about global warming my reaction is tempered by the knowledge that change is the only constant so far in the Earth’s history.

I also expect as we emerge from an Ice Age that temperatures will vary and weather patterns will become erratic.

In its simplest form, the engine that drives weather is the energy transference between cold air masses and warmer ones, ocean currents are driven by the same forces. So our present, somewhat chaotic weather patterns make sense to me.

 I have no doubt that man can make a terrible mess of his immediate environment.

I do have some doubt that we can cause an ice age to begin or end.

I guess my overall take on the current “crisis” is best summed up in a quote from Andrew over at Green Fatigue, “There is a technical term for this kind of projection of various unrelated ideas onto an ill-defined goal; it's called a pile of bullshit.”