Climate model changes. Well, this is good news.¹

Or not.²

It seems a group of scientists have found more time in their studies for humans to respond to global warming/climate change.

Hmmm, really?  For your consideration, I’m going to drop some thoughts, ponderances, and questions on global climate change and science here:

  • The recent discovery that Mars has unexpected weather.³ The nights are cold, cold, cold. While this information might ‘help future explorers colonizing the planet’, may I suggest that it could be useful in understanding the colonization we have on Earth already?

“It’s a bit like a Russian doll,” planetary scientist Paul Hayne from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who wasn’t involved with the study, told Nature, “with each successively higher-resolution model fitting inside the other.”³

I like this quote. It illustrates that climate scientists have a very difficult job. Peeling away the layers, uncovering the next doll. They are working with a very complex system and small changes in modeling, make measurable differences in projected results.

  • I’m totally gobsmacked when I read ” … we have more than 700 billion tons left to emit to keep warming within 1.5°C. ‘That’s about 20 years at present-day emissions,’ Millar said.” ¹

Well, hold the phone even though it’s ringing, statements like this released into the wild give us permission to continue bad habits that harm the environment. My individual contribution to 700 billion tons is just puny. I could jump up and down on that scale and it wouldn’t register so not my fault, right?²

I’ll be as cold, cold, cold as Mars at night here, but human life on earth may be a passing age regardless of any action we take. Regardless of any scientists, politicians, soothsayers, sooth-nay-sayers, we may all be doomed regardless of any action we take.

As evidence, the K-Pg event which sounds like a children’s show was actually a cosmic collision of the earth with an asteroid or comet. It extincted the dinosaurs.  “In the geologic record, the K-Pg event is marked by a thin layer of sediment.” Whoa! Big dinosaurs time left a geologic thin layer. Humans en masse? A geologic smudgy smear. Maybe. Who will know?

So regardless, let’s do the right thing.  Governments will argue, politicians will posture, manufacturers will whine about fairness, et cetera et al ad nauseum.

Let’s bring back “pollution”, the word, not actual pollution. Individuals can identify pollution and change pollutive habits and consumption. Personal actions and changes done by the millions have a HUGE measurable impact on the environment. (See also, plastic continent at the bottom of the ocean.)

And as we start environmentally hygienic habits and start trends designed to leave a smaller footprint, we unwittingly become consumer activists. (See also Hmmm, Part II. Remeber the Aerosol!) Rather than wait for government regulation and limits, dirty manufacturing cleans up due to market demand, clean-up happens because consumers require it.

And we remain the enthusiastically skeptic gardener.

¹Mooney, Chris. “New climate change calculations could buy the Earth some time — if they’re right.” Washington Post. 18 September 2017. Web. 19 September 2017

²Viva Nostradamus predicts that any time humans have gained by this news is just another distraction for politicians, governments, businesses, et al to argue about cause, effect and blame.  So, if you’ve read this far, just do what you can do today.  Stop polluting as you know it to the extent possible.  Trust me.  Micro actions in macro numbers makes a difference. To the planet.

³ Dockrill, Peter. “We Have First-Ever Evidence That Mars Gets Intense Snowstorms in The Dead of Night.” Science Alert. 22 August 2017. Web. 19 September 2017.