In recent days or weeks, how many times have you read or heard the words climate change? Nearly all of the world’s population now recognize and are familiar with the sight and the sound of those words. Unfortunately, some of our populations have been brutally assaulted by the side effects attributable to global warming.
Most people recognize that global warming is a silent killer. And yet many of us have not yet taken the steps necessary to eradicate activities that each of us contribute to this ever-increasing global temperature. Just recently the news media reported that the waters off the shores of Florida are near hot tub temperatures. While this may be of some comfort to arthritic swimmers, it is a deadly condition for the aquatic lives and floral growth in the oceans. It is important to note that the fruits of these abused waters provide food sustenance for a large percentage of of the world’s population. Regrettably, and hardly imaginable, this over-heating is primarily due to the actions of the humans who populate this planet.
Scientists are reluctant to directly attribute the huge increase in the record-setting weather events around the globe and especially disastrous across Canada from coast to coast to coast.
One of those scientists, Nathan Gillet, heads up Environment and Climate Change Canada. These persons of science use the growing field of attribution science in an attempt to link these recent extreme weather events to climate change. By definition, attribution science tries to measure how ongoing climate change directly affects extreme weather events. Attributing floods, drought and forest fires directly due to climate change is a very complex proposition and the attribution science inductions are known to have their limitations.
At this point in time there are few, if any, clear-cut reasons why these disastrous events are taking place more widely and with more frequency and devastation. Consequently, scientists are a mite suspicious that there may be a link. Climate change just may be the culprit. Gillet was quoted as saying, “May and June were record hot months in Canada and we’ve got the record fire season as well.” He is not definitive but according to an amateur examination of those words, there seems to be some sort of feeling in his left elbow that there may be a link.
Many of us who have grown tired of hearing the words climate change and global warming might be wise to pay a little more attention to what’s happening. The fact remains that should we continue abusing our environment as in the past, the result will be nothing less than disastrous.
