Climate Change

Since I don’t usually write a note on Friday, I thought I would use today to talk about something about which I know absolutely nothing (that will put me in the same category as a lot of other people I know), and for which my ignorance will probably be raucously criticized (fear and trembling have struck me).

Some of today’s headlines are related to the meetings in Denmark regarding this whole climate change issue. I have a question or two. Maybe if I ask, someone will clue me in.

Here’s the headline in question- By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer : COPENHAGEN – Wealthy nations would commit to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, and the world should strive to nearly eliminate them — or at least cut them in half — by 2050 under a draft text circulated Friday at the U.N. climate talks.

I looked at the Encyclopedia to find this comment – Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth; without them, Earth’s surface would be on average about 33 °C (59 °F) colder than at present.

So, by 2050, we are looking to cool the Earth’s temperature by 59 degrees – so that under those circumstances today’s temperature would be (at my house), let’s see, 41 degrees – 59 degrees = –18 degrees. Am I supposed to like that? Maybe my math is wrong again (see Wednesday’s note).

Of course we are going to fix this problem with (wait for it-). . .money. “In Brussels, President Nicolas Sarkozy said the EU commitment of $3.6 billion a year until 2012 ‘puts Europe in a leadership role in Copenhagen.'”  And, of course, Heaven only knows what the bill is going to be for us – US; Mr. Obama will be telling us that soon. Dare I ask how that puts one in “the leadership role?” Are they/we planning to buy the offending gas? If we are, are we going to store it in West Texas?

I guess the saddest thing for me to begin to get a grip on is that God has lost control of His Universe. It’s amazing to me that if He could speak it into existence, and operate it for all these millions of years (you can read about that in National Geographic and other scholarly tabloids), He would now be unable to handle a little gas.