By Allen Tinker
I am not an expert in the “global warming” debate.
But I have friends in the paleontological community who tell me that a mere 15,000 year ago 5 miles of ice sat on top of where I sit today looking out over the Shepherd Brook Valley toward Ward Hill and Dunbar Hill and Camel’s Hump beyond.
You will agree that 15,000 year ago human beings contributed nothing to the global warming event that has melted those 5 miles of ice and left us with a lovely valley and a delightful geography for year-round enjoyment. We’re halfway between Earth’s equator and the North Pole and enjoy about six months of each!
Yet, we are told by many experts that we are currently responsible for the global warming that is observed in our time.
We have known for a long time that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that our burning of fossil fuels has increased the amount of that gas in Earth’s atmosphere.
Science proceeds by making an observation, developing a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis and drawing conclusions.
But testing the global warming hypothesis requires an identical world in which humans are not pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
This is impossible, so many scientist have concluded that the observation that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas is sufficient to conclude that current global warming is caused by human beings.
This is dangerous because it relies on an observation rather than an experiment to reach a conclusion. We assumed for years that the amount of cholesterol in your blood is related to the amount of cholesterol that you put into your body. The National Institute of Health recently reported that this “hypothesis” has proved to be false for about 75 percent of us.
That human beings have always thought that they are more important than they are is illustrated by the following:
We used to think that it was our prayers and sacrifices that caused the sun to stop its drop toward the southern horizon in the winter. Our prayers worked and by December 25, the solstice, you could tell that the sun was returning to the north and celebration was in order. This turned out to be false when we discovered that Earth’s orbit and the tilt on its axis caused the observation.
We used to think that it was our disobedience as human beings that caused the “fall” of human and natural experience. The Judeo-Christian traditions document our responsibility in biblical scriptures known to all of us. This turned out to be false when we discovered that dinosaurs died and also experienced all the “fallen” parameters of life long before human beings came into being.
But nothing demonstrates the arrogance of our importance as a species than what we think is going to happen to us after we die. Around the world we have invented reincarnational and resurrectional models which assure us that we are going to live forever. Recently Pope Francis, in an effort to comfort a young person on the loss of a pet, assured the child that his dog was in heaven. Dog haters from around the world quickly assured all of us that there will certainly be no dogs in heaven!
It’s safe to conclude that in the great scheme of things that human beings have always thought that they were much more important than they actually are.
Our brief moment in time is the most priceless gift imaginable. And we must care for and protect the planet from our excesses and potentials.
But to conclude that we are the major influence in the current “global warming” phenomenon observed around the world, may be taking liberties that our species has always been prone to take about its own importance in the grand scheme of things.
Tinker lives in Fayston.
